by Philip Blood
Rachael suddenly switched to a different emotion, anger. “Get out, lover of boys! Out, out of my room, I never want to see you again, get out!” She ranted and stepped over to beat on his chest with her tiny fists until Jatar backed out of the room. She threw his jacket out on the floor and slammed the door in his face.
From the hallway, they could hear her crying against the other side of the door. “There is something odd about this, ‘Tak, she’s not reacting like a typical tavern girl should,” Jatar thought and then spoke aloud, “Miss, I’m sorry I offended you, would you tell me what is the matter? I’d like to help.”
Behind the door, the crying stopped for a moment and her muffled voice said, “Go away,” and then she yelled in a shrill voice, “I never want to see you again!” The emotionally crushed Rachael was at her wits end. She had been putting up a brave front for the boy she had brought in from the street, but now she had nothing left. She decided that death in the desert was better than the sergeant, his corporals, Fats and the constant men ahead in this bleak existence.
Shaking G’Taklar’s head, Jatar turned and went down the hall toward the stairway to the common room. The smells of smoke beset G’Taklar’s nose before they reached the bottom of the stairs. Jatar paused on the stairs to allow G’Taklar to resume control of his body before entering the loud common room ahead.
Rounding the corner G’Taklar found his senses assaulted by an abrupt increase in the level of sound and smell. Around twenty men and women were sitting at booths and tables under the low whitewashed ceiling having lunch. Their conversations in the small space were creating the level of noise. A translucent gray layer of smoke drifted along the ceiling from the many forms of tobacco being smoked. Some patrons near G’Taklar stopped speaking when they glanced over and spotted him in his bright clothing, but after a few smirks, most of the people went back to their conversations.
G’Taklar sat at an empty table and one of the waitresses came over to take his drink order. With a slight sneer, she said, “What’s it going to be, kier or do you have the round metal for a little romp?”
“Do you know Rachael?” he asked in response.
The barmaid was older than G’Taklar by quite a few years, somewhere in her mid-twenties, he guessed. She sized him up quickly and then said, “Rachael? Forget that little minx, I’m what you’re looking for and I’m available in a half-bell if you have the round.” As she spoke she picked up his hand and ran it up the back of her leg, behind her skirt.
G’Taklar snatched his hand away when it got into dangerous territory.
“I’m sorry Miss, that’s not what I meant. We’ll maybe it is, but, uh, I don’t want you, I mean if I were interested in that I might want you, but I’m not, so I don’t, I mean I don’t want anyone, but I was interested in Rachael, but not to pay her, just see if she got paid. Do you understand?” he asked, and even he was confused.
“No, and I don’t want you to explain it. Just tell me if you want me or not, I’m three shine a bell, two for a half. Well?” she demanded, left hand on hip and slouched in a bored attitude.
“No, I’m sorry,” G’Taklar responded, not meeting her eyes.
“Fine!” she exclaimed and whirled around to depart, piqued at the indignity of being spurned by the oddly dressed boy.
“Don’t you think it would be wiser to ask about a job before you antagonize all the help around here?” Jatar asked as G’Taklar watched the woman depart.
Before he could answer G’Taklar heard a high pitched scream from up the nearby stairs, followed by the bellow of a ranting male voice. He sprang to his feet, though the rest of the tavern was ignoring the whole thing.
G’Taklar raced back up the stairs and around the hall corner.
The first thing he saw was a large pot-bellied man wearing a leather apron. He was holding onto Rachael’s thin arm and thrashing her with a stick across her back and she was screaming while desperately attempting to wiggle free from her captor to escape the pain.
The Innkeeper bellowed at her, “What’s this about not seeing the sergeant, and where is the round you just took in?” As he spoke he kept hold of the girl and kept beating her with his stick. “I know you’re keeping it hidden, tell me where it is! I saw you sneak that boy up here, don’t deny it!”
“I didn’t do anything, please let me go! I don’t have any round,” the girl sobbed out to her assailant.
“Again you claim this, well it’s time to call your bluff,” and his fat hand grabbed the top of her gown and with a convulsive yank, he ripped her dress open down the front.
“G’lan, NO, please no,” Rachael pleaded.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Jatar admonished, “If you’re going to make a fool out of yourself don’t waste time as well.”
G’Taklar shook himself out of his stunned pause and rushed down the hall with heroic rescue on his young mind. When he reached the scene of the struggle he was behind the portly man, so G'Taklar wrapped his hands up under the Innkeeper’s arms and brought his hands back around to lock together against the man’s bull-like neck.
With a surprised bellow, the overweight man released Rachael who then fell to the floor. The Innkeeper tried to grab the clinging attacker at his back, but G’Taklar was attached like a shell on a turtle. The man bellowed again and crashed backward into the wall thereby slamming G’Taklar’s back hard against the dried mud wall.
G’Taklar started to lose his grip.
“Hold on and push with your hands, and whatever you do don’t let loose of this berserk hoofhorn!” Jatar advised.
Rachael looked up from the floor and saw the two men banging and crashing back and forth down the hall until they reached the stairway. The innkeeper could not see because his head was forced down nearly to his chest, so when he backed up in another attempt to pound G’Taklar against the wall he didn’t know he was headed for the open stairway to the common room.
“Look out Guitar,” Rachael screamed, “the stairs!”
Jatar was also watching the proceeding through G’Taklar’s eyes, and where the boy’s attention was concentrated on holding on while being bashed against walls, Jatar’s was on their next move.
He saw the stairway coming just before they spun to face away from it and thought to G’Taklar, “Get ready to let loose and drop to the floor when I tell you, get as low as possible… NOW!” he commanded.
G’Taklar let loose, and truth be told he could not have held on much longer anyway. He fell to the floor and rolled into a ball. The fat man was headed backward to smash him against the next wall, but tripped over him instead and went head over heels down the stairway.
When G’Taklar crawled over to look down after him he saw the man stretched out on the landing where the stairs turned, where he was moaning feebly, but not rising.
G’Taklar got up and staggered over to where Rachael was sobbing on the floor while holding the torn front of her dress closed with her left hand. He helped her stand up and was rewarded for his gallantry by a sharp slap to his face by her small free hand.
“You imbecile!” she cried out, “I could have handled my boss, he’s gotten rough before, now where am I supposed to live? Where can I find a job?”
“What are you talking about?” the confused and hurt young man asked.
“That was Fats, the innkeeper, my boss, ex-boss now,” she informed G’Taklar
“But he was going to rape you!” he exclaimed, in a hurt voice.
“He would have stopped, or even if he had not, it probably would have been for the best,” she sobbed, thinking of her bleak future.
“What do you mean?” G’Taklar asked, still confused.
“It’s none of your business! Get out of my way, I’ve got to go and see if I can salvage my job.” She turned her back and attempted to tie her torn dress, but then abruptly she said, “Did he see your face?”
“I don’t think so,” G’Taklar responded.
“Good, then get out of here quick, otherwise, he’l
l call for the soldiers and they’ll probably hang you. Oh, and I’m sorry I hit you and thank you for my rescue. I only wish it could have been you for my first…”, but then she trailed off and just leaned up and kissed him on the lips before adding, “Now get out of here while you still can.”
The spirited girl hurried down to the common room stairs to help her groaning employer while G’Taklar made good on his escape out the back stairway, his head in a daze from the kiss.
CHAPTER SIX - POISON
The name of the town was Roper. It was rough like its name implied, the streets twisting and knotting like some lunatic’s idea of a puzzle. Many horse trails and a single wagon road led into the town, like ropes to a tangled knot, giving testament to the constant traffic this border town attracted. The town was secluded at the edge of some low hills that sloped down gradually into dry yellow and lime colored grasslands. Roper was far from any of Operhelm’s major cities and only a few hours ride from the northern border.
Elizabeth’s chestnut mount snorted heavily when she reined him in at the top of the hill overlooking the town. Hetark brought his piebald stallion to a stop on her left side, and his gaze fell warily on the town as well.
“Roper looks as bad as its reputation forewarns, it should provide you with what you’re looking for,” Hetark noted.
“Good, it’s about time I started taking the offensive against my enemies, I will prepare the way for my son,” she said with a thin smile of anticipation.
Hetark watched that small smile and it warmed his heart; during the last few days of travel he had seen her look back over her shoulder toward the Kirnath School, lines of sorrow etched in her face warring with worry for her son.
Repeatedly he had watched her fight an internal battle between her need as a mother and Michael’s ultimate safety. Hetark knew her absence from Michael’s early years of development would scar Elizabeth for life, yet she went on to do what had to be done. He vowed silently to make their enemies pay, in total, for every instant of loss and sorrow that this fair Lady endured.
As he contemplated Elizabeth’s sorrow he became so angry with the perpetrators who had caused her anguish that his whole body shook in fury. He glanced over at Elizabeth, but she was so absorbed in studying the town below that she had not noticed his reaction.
“When would you suggest we enter town?” Elizabeth asked.
Hetark regained his composure and said, “The type of person you’re looking for won’t be available this early in the day.” He glanced up at the sun’s level, “I think we should take a room at a nice hotel and then wait until dark before we search some lower-class taverns for a likely candidate. If you prefer, I’ll do the hiring and you can sit back and look like the boss. I know how to speak the lingo with these roughblades,” he suggested.
Elizabeth gave him a penetrating look with her intense eyes, which made him shift uncomfortably in his saddle. After subjecting him to her glare for a few moments, she raised one eyebrow. “Implying that I don’t know how to blend in and would get us into trouble?”
Hetark cleared his throat in consternation before responding, “Well, I, well, yes.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she said, suddenly relaxing her stern expression and grinning at his reaction, she reached over and placed her hand over the top of his to reassure the worried man. “That’s one of the reasons I want you with me, and it’s also the reason we’re going to hire one of these people as a bodyguard, so I can use her to learn a few importing things. Remember, I’m looking for a woman, around my height, tough, good with a blade.”
“I still think I could teach you,” Hetark replied.
“Hetark, you’re too good a knight to teach me the kind of thing I want to learn, besides you have a male’s outlook on things and I need to learn the opposite. So stop worrying so much, it crinkles up the skin on your forehead, and that makes you look like one of those desert carrion birds,” she admonished him in good humor, but Elizabeth hadn’t told him all the reasons she wanted to find a tough woman to study.
“I’m just concerned for your safety, you don’t know these people, they’re... rough. If they spot someone with a crack in their shield or someone that’s not part of their ‘group’, they’ll be after you like a religious fanatic on an unbeliever.”
“What do you mean by after you?” she wanted to know.
“You become a ‘mark’, a person to hoodwink, or con or even kill and rob. Their kind feeds on the helpless, the more helpless you look, the more they will attempt to victimize you,” the knight explained.
“I understand, Hetark, but that is exactly the type of person for which I’m looking. I promise to let you take the lead, I’ll be the tough and quiet type, making them guess at my experience instead of displaying my naiveté,” she promised, letting loose of his hand. Then she added, “Besides, I have some advantages with handling people, as you know. Since we have a few bells to work with and I don’t feel like sitting in a hotel waiting for it to get dark, let’s stop here for awhile before going into town. We can practice those hand switching knife moves that you showed me yesterday, and you promised to begin teaching me to throw next,” Elizabeth reminded the knight.
Back in Headwater, G’Taklar found a kier house some distance away from Fat’s tavern and decided to try his luck at finding a job. He approached the old crooked door and glanced up at the sign hanging above, it was so faded that he could not make out anything except the picture of a kier mug.
He opened the door and found himself in a small entryway with a thick curtain that blocked further progress. G’Taklar pushed it aside and found that he was looking into a dark room that had small alcoves hiding rough wooden tables. A tired-looking middle-aged woman wearing thin robes approached and looked him over slowly. Her lip curled slightly in an amused sneer as she took in his colorful clothes. Then she said, “Do you want a boy, girl or Kier?” she drawled.
“I’d like to talk to the owner about a job.”
“A job, doing what?” she asked immediately, in a disgusted tone.
“Whatever I can, I need to make some round,” G’Taklar replied truthfully.
“No, you don’t say, round?” she repeated sarcastically as she made fun of the boy. “Well, I can see that you’re pretty, but there isn’t too much call for boys, I doubt you’ll talk Benny into giving you a job.”
Having just come in out of the harsh sunlight G’Taklar’s eyes were just starting to adjust to the dim light. He could see three single male customers sitting at tables around him; all three seemed uninterested in his conversation with the woman.
Unexpectedly the curtain was whipped back behind him and sunlight bore into the room silhouetting three soldiers who had just come in the door. The three patrons within immediately scrambled out of their tables and headed for the back door like rats fleeing a burning nest, but they ran right into the arms of the four soldiers entering from that direction.
G’Taklar stood in mute surprise at the interruption.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and barked out in a loud voice, “All those wish’in te join the Tchulian infantry, please stand up! Right, we seem te have four volunteers out o’ four, again! What patriotism, what courage, what good fortune...”
“What yulkcrap!” a patron who had been grabbed at the back door added.
“Exactly my friend, and that’s what you’ll be eat’in fer dinner if I’m interrupted again!” the soldier at the door replied as he walked over to the man and backhanded him across the face with casual brutality. The man’s smashed nose bled profusely.
“As I was say’in, I’m Sergeant Herms, and it is yer honor to voluntarily join the finest military in the world, the Tchulian infantry. From this day forth and fer the next six glorious years, assuming you survive that long, ye’ll be proud fighters fer the Tchulian goals. Bring the new recruits outside fer inspection, corporal!”
“Yes, sergeant,” a soldier who entered through the back door replied, “All right you scum
, you heard him, outside, and form a line. Move yer fat farters, now!”
“What should I do?” G’Taklar asked his internal advisor quickly.
“Move your tail outside like the man said, you’re in the Tchulian army,” Jatar responded.
“I’m what?” G’Taklar replied in disbelief.
“You’re in the army, well at least for the time being. We can’t do much against five armed men, so we’ll have to go with the program for now,” he explained, and added, “at least they don’t seem to be looking for you specifically.”
G’Taklar moved outside at the caustic corporal’s verbal prodding and once out in the sunlight he lined up with the other sorry Tchulian recruits.
The corporal walked up and down their ragged line, sneering at the blinking, swaying and generally sorry looking men they had caught in their recruitment net.
He turned to report to the sergeant. “This here group looks so bad it could be a waste of our time, maybe we should let them go and try fer some real men in the next dump.”
Hope sprang up in the faces of the new recruits, even G’Taklar’s face brightened, until the sergeant answered the corporal.
“Naw, I like the one in the fancy colors; I can’t wait te see him sweat.”
The other new recruits looked disgustedly at G’Taklar.
“Besides,” the sergeant continued, “it’s too much trouble in this heat to find any more volunteers, so let’s take these eager puppies.”
“I’m definitely going to have to do something about these clothes, and soon, they keep getting me into trouble,” G’Taklar thought to Jatar.
“I think they may take care of that for you, in fact, I’m sure,” Jatar finished saying as the corporal came abreast of G’Taklar. He reached up to the colorful silk shirt on G’Taklar’s chest and casually ripped if off like so much paper. This left G’Taklar’s upper body bare.
“Does everyone in this town want to take off my clothes?” he asked Jatar rhetorically.