I blinked a couple of times confused. "But I thought I couldn't bring higher tech items from Earth into Saladin because I was your champion?"
"You can't," Fel agreed. "But you didn't bring those, Laria did."
I was still laughing when I fell back into a deeper asleep.
Fourteen
Hidden Vale
3 Months
I looked over the plans for the trap, the thing was huge! They had built it next to the village wall, because they needed the wall to hide the parts behind and to work as a fulcrum.
Simply put, the bait would be attached to a heavy pole set in the ground, they added a second one, as I suggested two 'offerings' would be better than one, more likely to draw in our hungry little friend. Piled up behind the wall was a large net, they had bought up all of the rope in town, and were still working on that part, it was going to be huge.
Then there were two large poles to either side of the net, which were counterweighted with lines attached to the ends. The lines on those would quickly flip them up, then they'd fall into holes dug at the base of the wall, this would fling the net up, and there were four guide lines attached to the four corners of the net, those would steer the net to fall on top of the area the bait was in.
As if that wasn't enough, they were fixing large metal hooks to the inside of the net, the thinking being that they would hook through the thinner skin of the wings, causing the net to tangle up the wyvern's wings, keeping it from being able to fly, which would give me time to kill it, or at least keep it on the ground so it could be tracked and killed when it found a place to hide from the sun. That is if the sun didn't get it first.
They also had plans for several people to stand on the wall and throw bladders full of holy water at it, to see if that would help to kill it as well. I didn't know how well that would do, but it couldn't hurt. It was too bad we couldn't set it on fire as well, but that would burn through the ropes and allow it to get away.
"Do you think it will work?" Laria asked me later, while we were eating lunch.
I shrugged, "As long as it keeps it there long enough for me to kill it, that's all that really matters."
"Are those knives really that good?" she motioned to the two Gerber knives that I had bought her back when we were in upstate New York. She'd liked them, and they were pretty high quality, so I'd got them for her. I hadn't even realized they'd come through with us.
"Compared to the average knife around here?" I nodded, "These are higher quality than anything anyone could make in Hiland, or any of the neighboring kingdoms. And they'd cost a fortune. After I get these set on shafts, and have them blessed, I think I should be able to drive one through it, far enough to kill it."
"Well, I'm glad I had them, then," she smiled. "And I expect to be rewarded, heavily!"
I laughed, "Sure, if I manage to kill it tomorrow, I'll reward you all you can stand."
She purred and leaned into me, "I like the sound of that."
"So, miss me while I was gone?"
She nodded, "Of course I did! I went and talked to the ones you rescued from the bandits this morning, while you were meeting with Willis and them about the trap."
"Oh? How are they doing?"
"A lot better. None of them wants to go back to their families, and when Gunis showed up to see if his daughters had survived, the soldiers had to hold them back. They wanted to kill him!"
I shook my head, "Why am I not surprised."
"Oh, it wasn't just for him giving them to the bandits; it was because their mother was one of the one's that got fed to the wyvern."
"And he sold her to the bandits," I shook my head. "Why was he even there? I thought he said he didn't want them back when we brought this up months ago?"
"Well apparently, one of the young men in town still has a thing for Chelis, one of the girls, and had asked for her hand in marriage as soon as he learned she was back."
"Really?" I said surprised.
"So her father wanted to make sure she was there, before he accepted a dowry for her."
"Wow, that's pretty cold."
Laria nodded, "I know."
"What do you say we go find this guy?"
"Why?"
I shrugged, "Curiosity. After what she's been through, most men wouldn't be interested anymore, especially when the women here outnumber the men."
"Sure, shouldn't be hard to find, if he's bartering for a bride-price, they're probably over at the meeting hall."
I gathered up the two knives and we headed over to the hall, sure enough, Gunis was there, and he was talking with a young man.
"What are you doing here?" Gunis asked, and the young man turned to look at me. I recognized him as the one who'd asked about rescuing the woman at the town meeting when I'd first got here.
"Oh, I'm just saving you from breaking the law, that's all Gunis," I smiled. "Again."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Well, you see, as the leader of the females that were rescued, I'm the legal guardian now of all of them, not you. So any dowries, bride-prices, or anything else goes to me, or rather the crown." I smiled at him again, and purred.
"What! That's outrageous! I'm her father! She belongs to me!"
I shook my head, "No, what's outrageous is that after giving her away to bandits, you think you still have rights over her."
"Why, I! I'll--"
"You'll what?" I growled and put my nose to his. "I heard you say that you no longer wanted anything to do with either of your daughters, should they be saved. Well, I'm just honoring that statement."
His eyes got rather wide then, I was still growling and I was still holding two rather large knives in my right hand.
"I think you should leave," I growled louder, "Now!"
He left rather quickly, the scent of urine accompanying him as he left.
"That felt amazingly good," I said and smiled at Laria who laughed.
"Sir," the young man said looking up at me, "I would like to buy Chelis's hand in marriage, if I may?"
"Son," I said and smiled, I probably wasn't really that much older than him, "keep your money, if she wants to marry you, you have my blessings. After what she's been though, I think it would be better if you spent it all on her.
He nodded, "Thank you, Sir!" and took off like his tail was on fire.
"What do you think?" I asked Laria.
She shook her head, "I have no idea, she's been through a lot. But if she liked him before, she'll probably love him now!" she said with a grin.
I agreed.
"Well, let's go fine a couple of strong wooden shafts and get ready for tomorrow night.
"Oh, I know where to find a strong shaft," Laria teased.
I sighed and pinched her butt, causing her to giggle. "Work first, play later."
"Spoil sport."
It was late out, we'd tied the two former bandits to their individual poles, after gagging them of course, we were all pretty tired of their pleas at this point, and to be honest, they deserved it. We'd let the women vote on which two to put out there, which some people may have thought cruel, but what's sauce for the goose after all.
Everyone was hidden at this point; all of the ropes and lines had been carefully covered and hidden as well.
I was hiding in one of the houses closest to the point where we'd set this all up, at full speed, I could cover the distance in about ten seconds, but I had advantages that no Olympic sprinter had ever had.
It was close to midnight when it showed up, I could see it circling about, I don't know why it was unsure, perhaps because this was a new place for it, or perhaps because it was so close to the village.
I guess one of the prisoners had managed to get the gag out of his mouth, because I heard him start to yell and scream, and I could hear him struggling against the chains holding him in place.
The wyvern dove then and fell on him like a rock. I guess it couldn't resist the signs of a struggle, or maybe it hadn't been sure they were live offe
rings. I was out the door and running hard, I heard a loud scream that was cut off rather suddenly, and then someone triggered the trap, because ends of both of the poles flew up into the air, launching the net, the guidelines going taut and spreading it out and pulling it down rather quickly.
I vaulted the wall just in time to see the net come down on the wyvern, which was already swallowing half of the dead prisoner, the other half still being chained to the pole.
Its head came up then, and it bellowed as the net came down on its body, the head was not caught under the net however, and it tried to start moving forward, right towards me.
I threw the first spear at it, with all of my might, it moved at that moment and instead of hitting it square at the base of its neck, I got it in the wing joint. It tried to rear back while roaring rather loudly then, however the net kept it from doing so as I attacked with my second spear.
I ran in close and started to jab at its face, trying for an eye shot, but apparently it knew better than to let me do that, dodging its head side to side and trying to snap at my spear.
It struck at me, but I dodged easily, the net was still holding it down, and it appeared that the hooks were working, digging into the wings, which it was trying to flap, but it wasn't having any success in freeing itself.
I lunged in again, then had to dodge again, as it tried to bite me with its mouth, it had a head like a T-rex, and a mouth equally as big, the horns on its head were probably three feet long, and there was a ridge of something, bone or scales I wasn't sure, running down its neck and back, continuing on down to the end of its tail.
We continued to dance, it would snap at me, and I would lunge back in as it recovered and try to stab it in the neck or the body. I wasn't getting anywhere, but at least it wasn't either, and the spear I had already lodged in its side had opened up a wound that was bleeding rather well.
I heard some yells at that point, guess the others had finally caught up and joined the battle, and someone started to shoot arrows at it, most of which bounced off, but it distracted it long enough that I got in and stabbed it in the neck, and then got hit by its snout and thrown back a good thirty feet.
At least I didn't lose my grip on my spear.
Getting to my feet and running back in, I noticed that the ridge along the back was slowly starting to saw through the net, a couple of ropes it was woven out of parting as I watched.
Swearing loudly I got back in there quickly, getting ready to hurl myself at it, if I had to when someone lobbed one of the bladders of holy water at it, and it hit the same wing that I had stabbed the under.
The wyvern screamed in obvious agony as the bladder ruptured and water flowed all over the wing, and reared up with such strength that I heard the ropes that the net was woven out of parting like gunshots.
I knew it was now or never, so running under its now exposed chest I drove the spear up into its body, where I hoped the heart was, grounding the butt of the spear with my foot to keep it from moving as the wyvern started to come back down. It got about halfway back down, driving the end of my spear a good two feet into its body, gave another scream as it tried to rear back up again, only to suddenly stop as two more bladders of holy water hit it, shudder, and fall down driving the spear through its body.
And landing right on top of me.
"I'm dead, aren't I?" I sighed looking at Fel as he smiled at me.
"Yes, but you did kill it, and nobody else died."
I smiled, "Well, that's a relief at least." I thought of Laria then and frowned, "Is Laria?"
"She's upset, she's been crying for hours now, but Tisha and Donny have told her that you'll be back in Hiland probably before she is. Once she falls asleep I'll talk to her.
"Can't you talk to her now?" I asked curious. "She's in your church after all."
"It's hard to reason with anyone when they're hysterical, unless you want to do something to shock them out of it, and she's been through enough. So it would be better for her to just to let her wind down on her own first."
"Huh, I'd have thought otherwise, but I'm sure you know what's best."
"Well of course, William, I am a god after all!" Fel chuckled.
"So that's what it takes to understand women!" I said grinning.
"Don't let Rachel hear you say that, or she'll strangle you in your sleep," Fel teased. "At least you're in a good mood."
I shrugged, "When the net started to split my worst nightmare seemed about to come true, I didn't want to spend months trying to hunt that thing down in the mountains when I still have unfinished business back on Earth."
"There is that," Fel agreed.
I looked around; I could see Fordessa's stuff was still on the stage, I was a little surprised she wasn't here however.
"We don't want to divide our champion's loyalties," Fel said, reading my thoughts.
"Well, I would like to pay my respects sometime in the next few days before you reincarnate me," I smiled and stood. "But for now, I think I'll go outside and spend some time with the recently departed and see what I can learn."
Fifteen
Lankaran - Earth
2 Months
I was sitting back at a table at the Gafgaz Sahil Hotel in the city of Lankaran in Azerbaijan, eating lunch and smiling at Laria, who was rubbing her foot along my leg under the table. It had been a month since I'd died and I think she still hadn't come to terms with it.
After I'd been reincarnated, I'd had to first spend some time with Narasamman, who to be honest, deserved it because I hadn't spent any time with her in months. Then I'd had to deal with Laria who was still fairly upset over the whole affair, and of course I always owed Rachel as much of my time as I could spare.
That had taken up a bit more than two weeks.
Getting here to Lankaran, had proven to be a lot more difficult than I had expected as well. I'd had to use the 'Portal Travelers' establishment set up in New York City to get us better identities, traveling as an American in the former Russian republics wasn't always the best thing, and it was even worse in much of the Middle East, especially near Iran. So our passports now proclaimed us as 'Canadians', who as far as I'd seen, nobody had any problems with.
We'd then flown to Paris, then to Prague, then some place in the Ukraine that I couldn't pronounce, Georgia next, and then finally into Baku, where we hired a car and driver to take us to Lankaran. All of that had taken more than a week, with flight schedules, delays, weather, customs, and of course, bribes.
The hotel we were staying in was surprisingly nice, the people here were rather friendly, even if we didn't speak the language, and more than enough people understood enough English for us to get around. I'd managed to find a map that had street names on it, and was slowly working my way through it looking for the address that Fel had discovered when he had examined the documents I'd gotten from Garrison so many months ago.
I also suspected that he'd gotten quite a bit of information from the mind of the woman I'd sent through the gateway back in Boston, but I didn't ask and he didn't offer.
I was hoping this would be a quick in and out job, we still had to deal with the place in Afghanistan, and I really didn't have much of a plan for getting there yet, other than taking a boat across the Caspian Sea and walking there.
I could see why Cenewyg had a place here; from talking with people during our trip, as well as the locals, I'd learned that the borders were a joke and there were a dozen different ethnic and historical disputes in the region. So of course the illegal arms business was booming.
Especially since the fall of the USSR, with all of the breakaway republics, many of which had old scores they felt they needed to settle.
Many of the ones not involved in any of these disputes had thrown the doors open to the massive soviet armories that they felt they no longer needed and were making a lot money selling off everything inside.
"So, any plans for today?" Laria asked, smiling across the table at me, rubbing her foot along the inside of my leg.
I sighed, smiling. I'd actually been enjoying her rather amorous nature during our travels; it definitely made people believe that we really were newlyweds on an extended honeymoon. But the purpose of our being here was not to enjoy the sights, or each other.
"I think I've found the address we need to go to. I was planning on going to check it out after we'd finished eating."
She nodded and sighed, "I'd hoped to lure you back to the room for a while."
"You can lure me later, Hon, this needs to come first."
She pouted rather attractively, but her foot stopped its travels and I signaled for a waiter, and asked him to summon us a taxi.
Five minutes later and we were driving through town, heading towards the address I'd given the driver, who spoke just enough English to understand what I wanted.
"Why didn't you just hire a taxi in the first place?" Laria whispered in my ear.
"Because then I wouldn't know what the layout of the area was, incase we need to retreat," I whispered back.
"Oh!"
"This is it," the driver said as we pulled up in front of rather plain looking warehouse.
I gave him some money, and a tip, then we got out and looked around.
"What you want with this place?" The driver asked out of his window, looking at us.
"Supposedly my uncle has a business here," I said, sticking to the same lie that had worked so well for me already. "I thought I'd take a look at it. Doesn't look like much, does it?"
"Your uncle, here?" The driver asked.
"Maybe he lied," I said with a shrug, then taking Laria's hand I walked away, he was definitely asking more questions that I would have preferred.
"Looks closed," Laria said softly.
"Looks can be deceiving," I said and went up to the door that looked like an office door, which was about a dozen feet from the large warehouse doors, and knocked on it, turning to look at the taxi driver and scowl a bit. I guess he got the message; he drove off at that point.
Portals of Infinity: Reprisal Page 16