Portals of Infinity: Reprisal

by John Van Stry

  I sat back a moment and just starred at him. I could hear Laria was growling softly and the grip she had on my arm was rather tight.

  "Relax, Hon." I said to her, then turned back to him. "What changed your mind?" I asked, wondering why he was selling Gunis out to me now.

  "Nothing changed my mind! I planned to tell you the first chance I got!" he said rather emphatically. "Even if we could kill you, which I don't see how a group of us could possibly kill a man who killed a god. Then what? I bet your god would be rightly mad at us, and probably would send his people to wipe out the town!"

  I nodded, "Close. I'd come back here and kill all eight of you, for a start."

  "See?" Karl said, "Like I said, I'm not stupid. I went along with the theft because we're desperate, or at least Gunis is, he lost all of his workers and half of his muzhen. But those giants have been moving closer and closer, eventually they're going to wipe out the town."

  "I thought there had only been three attacks?"

  Karl shook his head. "More like a dozen. There were no survivors from the first six; we thought it was bandits at first. We didn't tell the townsfolk, because we didn't want a panic."

  "Why didn't you go for help sooner?" Laria asked, still a little bit growly.

  "Because Ulris, Serrin, and Kasin all sided with Gunis, and the four of them are more powerful than the rest of us, and they're not afraid to kill us either. But after you put Ulris in his place the other night," he said looking at me, "Serrin and Kasin are undecided about continuing to follow Gunis."

  I nodded, "Someone tried to murder us last night," I said softly and watched his face.

  Karl swore, "That doesn't make any sense! Gunis wants to wait until you've dealt with the giants."

  "You sure?"

  Karl shrugged, "It was the original plan, and Gunis isn't one to stray from his plans. He's thick skulled like that."

  I nodded, "Thanks, Karl, you're off the hook."

  "What?" He asked looking at me confused.

  "I'm not going to punish you. You're forgiven."

  Karl blinked, surprised. "That easy?"

  "Well, you might want to come to mass once we get the church up and running."

  "Um, I'm not really much of a church going male."

  "Feliogustus loves taverns and the people who work in them; he was once a tavern owner himself."

  "You don't say?" Karl said looking surprised.

  I nodded and then smiled, "Why do you think I grabbed Gunis's tavern for his church?"

  Karl nodded and looking thoughtful he took a drink from his mug, and then stood up, "I think I just might check him out then. Have a good evening, William."

  I raised my mug to Karl, "You too, Karl."

  I watched as he walked away, thinking about what he had said.

  "Do you believe him?" Laria said to me.

  I nodded, "Yes, I do. Soldiers from Hiland will need a place to eat, and a place to come drink. Also soldiers always mean camp followers and the like. For him, that's a lot more business. Then there'll be the cessation of the bandit's attacks, which probably hit him harder than any of the others."

  "So, money then."

  "Self interest," I said nodding, "It's in his best self interest to support me and support my plans. That makes him honest."

  "That's a rather self-centered reason, isn't it?"

  I laughed, "I don't trust people who aren't up front about their own interests and claim to be doing things solely for the interests of others."

  "Oh?" She said looking at me, "And what about you? Aren't you doing this to help us?"

  I gave her an ear-to-ear grin, "I'm here for two reasons, and right now I'm looking at one of them."

  Laria eyes went wide and then she looked down at the table, ears splayed and looking rather embarrassed. "You're doing this just for me?" she squeaked.

  "Of course, you're worth it," I said and smiled warmly at her, as she looked up to see if I was joking or not.

  "And what's the other reason?"

  "My god told me too."

  "Oh, so that's the real reason then," she huffed.

  "He reminded me first however that I had accepted you as 'payment' and seeing as I was rather attached to you, I had to help."

  Laria's eyes got wide again, "He said that?"

  "Right after he mentioned how cute you were," I said and grinned again as she blushed once more.

  "Now you're just teasing me!"

  I shook my head, "Nope, ah, dinner!" I said as the waitress came over with a large platter of meat, and some fresh loaves of bread.

  "Courtesy of the house," she said with a smile as she set it all down on the table.

  I pulled out a couple of coppers, "well, share this with the cook, and thanks," I said with a smile.

  She curtseyed and left.

  "Wow, that's a lot of food," Laria said surprised.

  "Looks good too. Let's eat."

  The food was actually rather good, and so was the ale. About the time we were finishing up, Kasin came into the tavern, and on seeing us, he made a beeline straight over to our table.

  "Champion, Laria," he said nodding.

  "Have a seat, and please, call me Will," I told him.

  "Thank you," He said sitting down in the chair that Karl has used earlier.

  "So, to what do we owe the honor?" I asked looking at him.

  "I was talking with Laria's father, Rodd a little while ago," he said a little uncomfortably, "and I wanted to let you know that I had nothing to do with it, nor do I have any idea of who did."

  I nodded, "Anything else?"

  He shook his head, "No, what else could there be?"

  Laria started to say something, but I put my hand on her arm and she stopped, "I hear there have been issues with organizing the runners and militia I wanted all of you to put together."

  Kasin sighed, "Oh, that. Yes, there are problems. Perhaps you could help us with that?"

  I nodded, "Tomorrow, I'll see what I can do to help. These attacks seem to be every five or six days, so I would like us to be ready for the next one."

  "When do you think you'll be able to put a stop to them?"

  "If everyone does their part, fairly soon. A more permanent solution however is going to take a little longer."

  Kasin nodded.

  "By the way, have you talked to any of the others about last night's incident?"

  He shook his head, "I'm not even sure that they know, William."

  I nodded again, "Okay, thank you for telling me that. Tomorrow I'll look into our militia issues. Have a good night, Kasin."

  He nodded and stood, gave us each a bow, "Good night," and left.

  I stretched and looked over at Laria, "I think it's time for bed for us as well."

  "It's still early, Will," she said.

  "I didn't say sleep," I purred, "I said bed."

  Laria didn't say anything, just smiled and getting up, led me back to the newly redone storeroom where we'd be spending the night.

  I spent the next day whipping the villagers into shape, almost literally. Everyone who helped in town got lunch, and a mug of ale. I added the later when I thought about Karl's comments the night before. I donated all of ale, using the kegs that Gunis had left in the bar.

  The villagers were pretty happy about that; I now had twenty bowmen, and five helpers who would keep them supplied with arrows in any combat, as well as maintain the small lamps we'd be using to light them.

  For runners, I was only able to recruit a small handful of volunteers. Whoever did that job was going to be spending their nights out by the cave, and sleeping days. Which meant they wouldn't be able to work. But after talking with the others I had learned we could us signal fires, so we'd set a small group up on the side of the canyon above the cave, where they could keep watch. They'd light a signal fire, which at night would be easily visible from the village.

  With that done, I spent the rest of the day looking for the best places to ambush the giants on their trek to
the village, so far it appeared that they took the same route each time. As fire worked fairly well, I introduced the concept of the 'Molotov Cocktail' to those who had the best throwing arms. We'd use the cheaper oil lamps, they seemed to break pretty easily, and with any luck, we'd catch them unprepared this time around.

  What I really needed though was some infantry, and a way to seal that cave. Or at least kill them back at the cave.

  That night I was awoken by someone pounding on the door of the church. Jumping out of bed and grabbing my weapons harness I ran to it and opened it, it was one of the two night guards.

  "The signal fire is lit!" he said, pointing off to the west.

  I stepped out into the street, so I could get a better view, and sure enough, it was.

  "Damn, they're early. Go wake the others, meet me at the wall."

  "Yes, William!" he said and ran off.

  I went back inside and got dressed quickly. I had our six Molotov's in a carefully padded bag, which I grabbed and took with me to the wall. We had an hour or two before they got to our ambush spot, so I wasn't too worried, yet. But it took almost an hour to get everyone together and ready to go.

  "They're early!" several people said as we gathered and started off to the west.

  "We haven't practiced our attack!" Tal complained as we started off to our ambush spot at a trot.

  "At least we have a plan," I said.

  "And a warning," Tal reluctantly agreed, "so we're better off than before."

  Those that overheard us all nodded and agreed as well.

  We got to our ambush spot about a half hour before the giants did, I wasn't sure if they were moving quicker than we were, or if maybe we'd been slower. Or perhaps the guard just hadn't been watching for the signal. No one had expected them to show tonight, after all.

  When they started to come into sight, was when we got our next surprise. There were eight of them.

  "Pass the word: attack the first four with the fire bottles;" I told them. "Me and the archers will deal with the second group after that."

  They all nodded and when the giants got to the line we'd marked on the ground earlier, four bottles arced over and hit three of the giants, only one missed. All four bottles broke open and there were suddenly four very bright fires burning. The three that were hit bellowed, and two more bottles came flying out, both hitting the one who had been missed earlier, and lighting him up rather impressively.

  While confusion reigned, the rest of us started in with our arrows, Half of the archers, the better ones, had been told to aim for the head, while the others aimed for the bodies. I noticed that maybe half of the arrows that hit were on fire, and that some of the archers were taking shots at the ones who were burning as well, but I didn't care, this was our first effort after all.

  Two of the ones on fire fell to the ground and started to roll around, though I wasn't sure they knew what they were doing so much, more likely they had just tripped or bumped into each other in their panic and fallen down.

  The four who hadn't been set on fire did not panic however, they started to push past the ones who were burning and lay about the trees we were using as cover with their massive clubs.

  "Back!" I yelled, "Pull back!"

  I noticed my militia were more than happy to comply with that order, though I also noticed that two of my archers circled around behind the advancing four, and continued to shoot arrows into the ones that were still burning.

  I wasn't too worried about the ones on fire, even if they got themselves put out; I figured they'd be looking to retreat now. However, the other four seemed rather incensed and were pressing their attack.

  "Everyone back to the wall!" I yelled out.

  "You're in charge, Tal," I said and struck out to the left, if I could get behind them, I figured I could probably take out at least one from behind.

  With everyone scattering and running back to town, the giants had a hard time deciding on targets, and from the way they shoved each other and bellowed a few times, I got the impression that they weren't cooperating very well either. About halfway back to town, they slowed back down to a walking gait, and they seemed to be panting rather loudly.

  I guess moving all that weight wasn't very easy for them.

  So I just waited until one of them lagged behind, then running up quickly behind him, I hamstrung him with a hard slash with one of my swords, then ran back into the cover of the woods.

  The effect was rather educational. He bellowed, and fell to the ground, the other three stopping and turning back to look at him. He bellowed some more and one of the three bellowed back.

  At that point some sort of argument took place, with the one on the ground holding its bloody ankle. It went back and forth for several minutes, and ended when the one apparently in charge suddenly crushed the skull of the wounded one with his club! The three of them walked off then, leaving their dead companion behind.

  When they got to the wall, the leader held back and let the other two go first, as they were all being peppered with burning arrows. So I took my sword and hamstrung him as well, running back out of the way as he staggered back and screamed.

  The other two turned and looked at him, but he didn't fall to the ground, instead he took his club and pressing it down against the ground he used it to steady himself as he turned around and started to hobble away from the town.

  Seeing their leader abandoning them, the other two quickly turned and followed, another argument seeming to start, but it didn't continue long when the leader threatened one of them with his club, while he balanced on one foot.

  I heard the villagers cheer as they left, and I started to trail them back towards the cave. Tal caught up with me shortly after that.

  "Now what?" he asked me.

  "I'm thinking," I said. "See if you can find the two archers who stayed to keep attacking the other four. I'd like to know what happened with them."

  "Sure, Will," he said and ran off into the woods, giving the giants a huge leeway, so they wouldn't see him as he ran through the trees in the dark.

  The giants had left the valley and were making for the box canyon that the cave was in when Tal caught back up with me.

  "So?" I asked.

  "One died from the fire, they got enough arrows into the head of another one to kill it, and the other two are in pretty bad shape. They're keeping an eye on them; they're crawling in this general direction."

  "Well, sunrise is maybe an hour away, so I guess we won't have to worry about them much longer," I said.

  "What about them?" Tal motioned to the ones up ahead.

  "They've been pretty careful, so I haven't been able to attack."

  "Too bad we're out of arrows; maybe we could join the watchmen and pour oil down on them as they go in the cave?"

  "Nah, that wouldn't...." I suddenly thought about what someone had tried to do to me in the house the other night, and then remembered some stories about how they'd killed a lot of soldiers during world war two in the south pacific.

  "Come on; let's go up there quick, I have an idea!"

  I ran flat out to get up to where we had the watchers set, leaving Tal behind rather quickly as he struggled to keep up. When I got there, I could see the giants were just entering the little box canyon.

  "Sir!" one of the three watchers said getting up rather suddenly as the other two yawned and looked at me.

  "Quick, what do you have that will burn? And I need a rope."

  "Well, we have a couple of skins full of lamp oil, and that stack of wood over there," he said pointing.

  "Any rope?"

  He nodded and pointed.

  I looked around; they all had bedrolls that looked pretty heavy.

  "Everyone up, put a bunch of sticks in your bedrolls, pour oil over it, then wrap it up and tie it," I said and grabbing the one guard's I started in on it.

  "Wait! What? I need that!"

  "I'll buy you a new one, now get to it!" I growled.

  They got.

>   By the time the giants made the cave I had three nice bundles tied to the end of the rope. I quickly lowered it down until it was in front of the cave and marking where that was along the rope's length, I then pulled it back up.

  "Set it on fire."

  "What?" The guard said looking confused. Tal just grabbed one of their lanterns and set the whole bundle on fire.

  I grabbed the rope near the bundle and tossed it out over the canyon, then got a firm grip on where I had marked it. Sure enough when it hit the end of the rope, the bundle came flying back at the cave entrance, and I let go of the rope as the bundle disappeared inside.

  "What's that going to do?" One of the males asked.

  "Know how everyone dies if the chimney on your house clogs at night."

  He nodded, "Well yeah, everyone knows about that."

  "Same thing. That fire will soak up all the air. They'll suffocate."

  "Really?"

  I nodded, "If they don't get to the portal in time, yea, they will."

  "You know, a couple of bales of wool, soaked in oil, stuck down in that cave could cause some real problems," Tal noted.

  I nodded, "Thinking the same thing myself. Set it on fire as soon as we hear them coming, and with any luck, kill them before they even get out of the cave."

  I turned to the three watchers, "Head back to town, tell Rodd we need a couple of bundles of wool, and a lot of lamp oil to soak them with."

  "What about our bedrolls?" He asked, still a bit upset with having lost his I guess.

  I gave each of them ten coppers, "Buy new bedrolls, and eat a good meal. We'll need you back here by sunset."

  Their eyes all got wide and they nodded.

  "Fetch some arrows from my shop as well," Tal called.

  The all nodded again and quickly left.

  "You know, you probably just gave them more money than any of them has ever seen in his life."

  I nodded, "I want someone here everyday now. The giants came early this time, and they brought more along with them. Next time I'm worried it's going to be a lot more, and probably a lot sooner."

  "Well, the sun's coming up and it's going to take a while to get down there without a rope, so why don't we go see how you did?" Tal said nodding towards the path.