Portals of Infinity: Reprisal

by John Van Stry

  "If we haven't, Tom or Jeri should be able to sniff them out," I said.

  Five minutes later, Tom found one hiding in the basement, and made rather short work of them.

  I took the time to check all of the bodies before we left; they were all wearing the Gatwick symbol. I checked their ID's to be sure they were the ones we were looking for, including the local priest, who was wearing the Gatwick ring. Everything matched, so apparently Juan was serious both about his faith and his penance.

  I didn't find any trace of an altar anywhere in the house, or in the garage, and after making a clean sweep of things, we went back to the car, left it at the rental place, which by this time of night was closed, and I opened a gate and we all went home.

  Twelve

  Hiland - Castle

  4 Months

  "We have a problem," Rachel said to me at breakfast, a few days after Laria and I had gotten back. She was reading a dispatch that had just been brought into the dining room as we were eating.

  "What?" I asked.

  "This just came on a rider from Hidden Vale, here look," she said and she handed it to me, Laria looked up from her breakfast concerned as well.

  "Is it bad?" she asked.

  "Possibly," Rachel said.

  I read it; apparently they were having some sort of trouble with a monster, a large flying monster. I suddenly thought about the thing that had swooped on me, at the portal to the underworld.

  "Damn," I swore, "I'll head out immediately."

  "You know what it is?" Rachel asked looking at me.

  "I think so. I'll have to stop and talk to Fel about this; I think it's related to that portal to the underworld we sealed. This must have come through before we took care of it."

  Rachel nodded, "I'll send a cavalry company along with you, I'll have a messenger tell Holse my orders, hopefully he'll have them ready by the time you're done at the temple."

  I nodded, "Let me go pack," I said and got up.

  Laria got up as well and I looked at her.

  "I go where you go, remember?" she said and then sighed, "Plus, it is my home, I may be able to help."

  "Just keep him out of trouble," Rachel said, "And stay out of trouble yourself, Laria, I'd hate for anything to happen to you."

  Laria smiled and ran over to Rachel and gave her a kiss on the cheek, "I'll be careful, I promise," she said.

  "What, nothing for me?" I sighed dramatically.

  "You've been getting yours for the last several days," Rachel smirked. "Besides, Feliogustus takes care of you; Laria however, has to depend on us. So don't let her get hurt."

  I nodded, "Let's get our stuff and go."

  I made it to the temple twenty minutes later, and walked in the back, I was surprised to see Fel's embodiment waiting there for me.

  "Is it the same thing that attacked me?" I asked him.

  "I think so, William, but I can't be sure yet. It's killed over a dozen people so far, one of which followed me. However they didn't see anything; they were attacked from above, at night."

  "Can you give me any advice?"

  "Get your arrows and your blades blessed every morning, and every night. Carry holy water with you. This thing is a creature of the negative plane, so the spiritual energy that comes from me will cause it extra damage."

  "Will the sunlight destroy it?"

  Fel nodded, "So it must be denning up in a cave during the daytime."

  I nodded and gave a small bow, "Thanks, Fel. I better get up there."

  I grabbed Laria who was just standing there staring at Fel in amazement. I guess she hadn't seen him before and his presence did tend to awe and overwhelm the mundane.

  "Did, did you see him?" Laria said as we mounted our wolats and headed off west, to pick up the path into the mountains.

  I smiled at her, "Yes, I saw him."

  "How, how are you able to even talk to him?" she said, still amazed.

  "You get used to it after a while," I said urging Tom onto a trot.

  "He's amazing," she sighed.

  "He likes you too," I said teasing her, and then quickly realized that maybe I shouldn't have as she looked both shocked and embarrassed.

  "He likes me?" she squeaked, and then started coughing.

  She spent the next two hours asking me about just how much. I didn't have to imagine it this time; I could actually hear Fel laughing at me in my head.

  # # #

  Two days later I was sitting in the church I had helped build, talking to the local commander, Second Willis.

  "Thank you for coming to our aid, William," he said sitting down on the bench across from me. It had only been about three months since I'd left here, and the barracks for the company were still under construction. So I'd figured this was the next best place to talk. The place really did look a lot nicer now, with all of the benches put in, and everything cleaned up and repainted.

  "If it's what I fear it is, this thing is going to take a lot of effort and people to kill it," I said. "It's a creature from the underworld, which means it's tougher and stronger than any normal animal, and much more intelligent as well. Also it means that it must hide from the sun during the day, and that holy water and holy items will harm it more than natural ones."

  "Is that so?" The Second asked, his ears perking up.

  I nodded, "I'm going to be imposing on our clergy here to make us a lot of holy water, and to bless our weapons as often as possible."

  "That's going to keep them fairly busy."

  I nodded, "Yes, it will. I'd appreciate it, if you loan them some of your men, should they ask for help."

  "Done, I'll assign one of my fourths to talk to Priestess Tisha immediately and let her know."

  "Tomorrow, I'll start scouting for this thing's den," I told him, "Is there anything else I need to know about?"

  "We had a run in with the bandits almost four weeks ago."

  "Oh, how did that go?"

  "About as expected, we had a couple of men wounded, they lost about eight, we captured six more, which we hanged the next week once we discovered what they'd done and tried them."

  I nodded, "I suspect they won't be coming around here again. Any idea on where their camp is located?"

  He nodded, "It's west and a little south of here. I can show you on our main map if you come by the command tent. We got several of the bandits to tell us where it was before we hung them."

  "I'll do that. How are the townspeople taking it?"

  He shrugged, "About what you'd expect, the ones we buy things from love us, the ones we help love us, the ones we're reining in, they hate us. The rest really don't care, though there was a pretty large turnout when we hanged those bandits, that made a lot of folks very happy."

  I nodded, "They've been preying on the people here for a long time."

  Second Willis laughed, "Yeah, and now that the women aren't worried about being carried off, more than a few of them have started to investigate my men. I figure by this time next year, either I'll have men asking to settle here, or ones asking to take their new wives back to Hiland."

  I smiled, "Well, then it's all good. I'll talk to you in the morning, Willis."

  He nodded, we both stood and touched hands, and he left.

  "I'm glad he's going to send us over some men to help," Priestess Tisha said coming over to me. I guess she'd been listening in, not that I blamed her, she was in charge here. "Donny and I are going to be strapped keeping up with all of the blessings and holy water you're asking for."

  I nodded, "I know, but Fel told me that these things are weak to that."

  "Feliogustus," she corrected me with a smile, "I don't want you corrupting our acolytes."

  I laughed, "Uh-huh. Well, I'm going to grab Laria and go over to Karl's place for some dinner, then back here to sleep. Thanks for letting us have the acolyte's quarters to ourselves."

  "Eh, sleeping on the floor builds character," she smiled.

  "Well I guess that explains me," I grinned back at her, and
went and got Laria. They had fixed up the living quarters rather nicely as well, I'd found. One of the former storerooms was now a rather nice bedroom that Tisha lived in, the other storeroom was now empty of kegs, and had been done over for Donny.

  The room in the back, now had two bunk beds for the four acolytes that had come here with the priests, and while I wouldn't have minded sharing the room, nor would Laria I suspect as she was even more shameless than I was, I think Tisha and Donny didn't want them exposed to our antics. Or more specifically our love play.

  Then again, maybe they were worried I'd personally corrupt their acolytes myself, as three of them were young females.

  Not that I wanted to, nor would Laria have let me of course.

  The sun was setting as we sat down in Karl's tavern for dinner. I was surprised when Karl came out and asked to join us with his wife Marsha. Apparently she ran the kitchen here, which I guess made sense when I thought about it.

  "So, I guess you've returned to deal with the monster?" Karl asked after we'd all finished eating.

  I nodded, "As soon as Queen Rachel found out, she asked me to deal with it."

  "More like he volunteered before she even asked," Laria put in.

  I shrugged, "I know my wife, she wouldn't have shown me the message if she didn't want me to deal with it." I looked at Marsha and then Karl, "This is part of her kingdom now, and she takes care of her people. I didn't ask for the extra soldiers to come along, but she wanted everyone to realize that she's concerned."

  Marsha looked pleased with that, and Karl nodded, "I had hoped that would be the case, and I'm glad to see it is. The rest of the villagers will be happy to find out as well.

  "This is connected to those giants, isn't it?"

  I nodded, "We're fairly certain that it came through before we got the passage blocked. I'd hoped to seal it off before anything else got through; thankfully nothing worse was able too."

  "This thing sounds pretty fearful," Marsha said, "I'd hate to think of what something worse would be."

  I nodded, "Me too." I looked to Karl again, "So, how are the rest of the village leaders handling everything?"

  "Gunis is slowly rebuilding his ranch, and isn't focused on much beyond that, I think he's still dealing with his loss of power here in town. No one has heard anything of Ulris of course, not even any rumors as to where he may have gone.

  "Laria's father, Rodd, has actually been doing quite well of late, with the soldiers here the need to wool and leather has increased. Ed is also doing much better now."

  "As are you, I'm sure," I said smiling.

  He nodded, "Very true. Otherwise things are the same overall, Serrin and Kasin still wield the most influence, but both of them have embraced the new changes, probably because they see more prosperity for themselves, as well as the town. As for the rest of the people?" He smiled, "The females all love it, more males in town, less chance of ending up in a bandit's bed."

  "What about the males?" Laria asked.

  "With the barracks and other things being built, they see a lot more work, which means more money. Some of the others are looking at the soldiers and thinking that joining up might be a good way to get out of this 'dead end town,'" Karl said the last with a grin.

  "Young men never change," I laughed.

  "Yeah, there are a few who aren't happy about it," Karl continued, "they're either the ones who were the cock of the walk before a large group of males older and tougher than them showed up. Or bullies who have suddenly found out that the group of older and tougher men don't like them much." Karl grinned again. "We actually now have a city guard, Second Willis was kind enough to start one using his men."

  "Sounds like things are looking up," I agreed. "So, what can you tell me about this creature?"

  "There haven't been any attacks on the village, yet. But some folks have claimed they've seen a dark shape up in the sky, circling overhead when the moon is out."

  "What about those outside of town?"

  "Each of them was by themselves when they disappeared, in one case they were in the middle of a pen with some muzhen, and it was their screams of panic that brought others out to investigate it.

  "It wasn't until we found a bunch of clawed up suzhen out in one of the pastures and the remains of the shepherd watching them, that we realized we had a problem. Alsten, one of the ranchers, told me he saw some footprints, they were like a birds, only bigger, about this wide," Karl held his hands up, about three feet apart.

  I nodded, I remembered those claws that I saw, and that seemed about right.

  "I'll be riding out in the morning, see what I can find."

  "Riding?" Marsha said looking at me curious.

  "They have these giant beasts that they can ride on," Laria said smiling, "Will taught me how! It's really fun!"

  "I've heard about them," Karl said, "Haven't seen any yet thought."

  "Well I just brought over two hundred of them with me," I said, and then almost laughed as I saw the expression on Karl's face. No doubt he was figuring his profits for the next month.

  "I better double my order for ale," he said looking over at Marsha who nodded.

  "You might want to see about building an inn," I mentioned, "people are going to need a place to stay when they visit."

  Karl nodded, "Already started work outback, just most of the folks are already working on the barracks, so its slow going."

  I nodded and finishing my ale I stood up, "Well, I need to get up early, nice talking with you Karl, Marsha, give my regards to the rest."

  I helped Laria up and we walked back to the church. I looked up in the sky as we did, but I didn't see much of anything beyond the stars.

  I took a hundred cavalry soldiers and rode out about an hour before sunrise. I led us to the box canyon where the portal to the underworld was. If this thing was living in a cave, that was the first one I thought we should check.

  I also thought it would be a boost to morale for those living outside of the village to see that their new queen was taking this seriously and had sent out a large force to deal with the problem. Basically a 'show the flag' exercise.

  We got to the cave not long after sunrise and jumping up; I grabbed the ledge to pull myself up, and then looked into the darkness inside. The smell coming out of the cave wasn't a good one, it smelled like rotten flesh. I drew my sword as I approached but I suspected that it was already gone. Most beasts wouldn't foul their own den like that; however this wasn't a natural beast, so I couldn't be sure.

  I got out a torch, and lit it, then tossed it inside, and watched to see what happened as several of the soldiers climbed up to join me, lighting torches of their own and tossing them inside.

  "Wait here," I told them and cautiously made my way inside, moving slowly and giving my eyes a chance to adjust as I moved in deeper.

  There were bones on the floor, most of which had been cracked to get at the marrow. There were quite a few skulls as well, muzhen, suzhen, what looked like a bear, but nothing that looked like a felinoid.

  "It's safe," I called back, "Bring a couple of lanterns." I then picked up my torch and went over to the pile of giant bodies that we'd turned to stone. It looked quite gruesome in the torchlight, all of those stone heads and faces, along with the stone bodies piled up. It took me a few minutes, but I could see claw marks in several places. It had tried to dig through the stone bodies, but it hadn't had much success.

  Still, that didn't sit well with me; I'd have to see if something could be done about that.

  "Sir," one of the soldiers said to me, "whatever it was, it hasn't been here in weeks, the remains have all dried out and there aren't any flies or maggots any more."

  I nodded, "Let's go back outside and have a look at what's here."

  We left the cave and I stood on the ledge looking around, there weren't any other caves in the canyon that I had noticed before. I'd have to ask Tal, and probably everyone else in the village, for the locations of every cave that they knew of. I could
see this taking months and I didn't have months to go looking from cave to cave in the mountains, especially once the snows came.

  And that assumed that this thing wasn't changing dens every month or two. I needed a plan, and I needed a trap, something to lure it in.

  I'd have to think about that, and I'd have to ask Fel if he had any insights.

  "Orders?" the Third in charged asked me. His name was Koglin.

  "Let's ride around the hill here and head up to the top of the cliffs and see what we can. After that I think I'll have you break the men up into groups of five, spread out across the valley, talk to the locals, and look for any signs of the creature. Just make sure they all understand that they're to be back an hour before sunset for debriefing.

  "Yes, Sir," he said and we climbed back down from the ledge and mounting our wolats, we rode up to the top of the cliff. There wasn't much to see up there, though it did give a rather good view of the valley, and I sat thinking as I looked out over it, while Third Koglin detailed the troops, pointing out the area's that he wanted each of them to investigate.

  "Going to be a long hunt, isn't it, Sir?" He asked, coming over to me as his troops rode off to follow their orders.

  I nodded, "Unless we get lucky, yeah, it sure is. What we need is a trap, something to lure it in, so we can kill it."

  "Or at least trap it until sunrise," he agreed.

  "The biggest problem I see however, is what do you bait the trap with? What would lure this thing in?"

  Third Koglin shrugged, "People, I'd guess."

  I looked at him, "What makes you say that?"

  "Well, think about it, there are lots and lots of muzhen, suzhen, cattle, as well as deer and other critters around here for it to eat. All of which are probably a lot easier to catch than a person. So why is it eating people?"

  I remembered Fel's comment about us 'tasting good' to the giants.

  I sighed and nodded, "You may have a point. But who would want to volunteer for that duty?" I asked shaking my head just thinking about it.