“My leg,” his hand went to the limb that had caused him so much trouble this past week or so. “What can be done for my leg? I must get to Chantros.”
“The healer has looked at it and says there is nothing he can do for you.”
“Then how will it get better?” He tried to get up and so she was forced to push him back down.
“Rex and Jonathon are going to talk to you about your leg.”
“Where are they?” he asked eagerly. “I need to see them.”
“We’re here, Jed.” Rex stepped clear of the shadows at the far end of the hut and made his way over to him with Jonathon directly behind.
“Rex, we need to get to Chantros,” Jed said desperately. “Time is running out.”
“And we will get there,” Rex assured him, as he squatted down beside the mattress. “But we need to do something about your leg first.”
“Yes, my leg,” Jed said, glad someone was finally taking his predicament seriously. “Do something for my leg will you it hurts beyond belief.”
“Look buddy…the leg really isn’t very good. The poison has travelled almost to your hip, and once it reaches it there’s nothing we can do for you.”
Jed looked blankly at him. “So what can you do to stop the poison?”
“There’s only one thing we can do, Jed.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “We’re going to have to take your leg off.”
Jed’s tired brain tried to take this new piece of information in. “Take my leg off…how…what do you mean, Rex?”
“I’m afraid if we don’t cut your leg off you are going to die,” Rex said plainly.
“Cut my leg off…Rex you can’t be serious. I need my leg to get to Chantros.”
Rex placed his hands on Jed’s shoulders and gave him the gentlest of shakes. “Listen to me, Jed. If we don’t take your leg off you will die. Then you will never get to Chantros.”
Jed slumped back on the mattress and tried to figure out what Rex was saying. They wanted to cut his leg off because if they didn’t Rex said he would die. Rex had never lied to him before, so if Rex said it was true then he believed him. “If you think it is best, Rex,” he said tiredly, “then go ahead.”
He could hear voices again but was too exhausted to put faces to them. Someone was suggesting they ply him with alcohol to dull the pain of the operation, and another was saying they would grind up a paste from some plant and apply it to his stump when the operation was over.
Later on, after the alcohol had taken effect, he felt strong arms pinning him down and then a sudden and violent pain tearing at his thigh, ripping its way past his hip and up into his belly. Then he heard the screaming, it was loud and long, and unlike the last time he knew that these screams were his. And then there was blackness, an all encompassing pit of inky blackness, and he was falling down, down, down, and then there was nothing.
When he woke up the pain from his leg was intense, and so doing his best to screw his head around for a better look at it he was given a sudden jolt when he discovered it was gone.
“Amora…Amora…”
“I’m here, my love.”
“My leg…”
“It will be all right,” she promised, stroking his thick black hair. “You will live now.”
“But my leg is gone.”
“You will be all right without it. You would have died if they hadn’t taken it off.”
He would have died? He tried to think. Yes, he could remember Rex saying something about that. He had told him the leg must come off or he would die. But how was he going to get to Chantros without it? How was he going to save the Noragin from Montrose? He must have dozed off again, for when he next opened his eyes Amora was gone and it was Rex who was sitting beside him.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’ve felt better, Rex.”
Rex smiled grimly. “I’ll bet you have.”
“What are we going to do about Chantros?”
“As soon as you’re able to travel we’ll put you on a stretcher and carry you there.”
Jed managed to raise his head a few inches. “Then let’s go now, we’ve already lost far too much time. There’s no telling how much damage Montrose has done already.”
“You’re in no condition to be travelling, Jed. We must give you time to recover.”
“There is no time,” Jed urged. “Montrose won’t wait for us. He’s out there hunting the Noragin and Skraelings down as we speak.”
“You’re going to need a week at least before you can travel. You’ve just undergone a major operation under very primitive conditions.”
“Listen, Rex. If we don’t get to Chantros and get that weapon back to the Noragin quick smart then Montrose is going to get Frida, and you know what he’ll do to her don’t you?”
Rex’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. But you’re not up to travelling yet.”
“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that? I’m not going to lose this leg for nothing. If we get that weapon back in time then what’s happened to me will be worth it. If we don’t …then I’ll be looking for someone to blame.”
“It’ll be tough on you,” Rex warned.
“I’ve been through tough times before.”
“Not like this you haven’t.”
“Rex…we must do this,” he said with emphasis.
His friend stared down at him. “How soon do you think you’d be able to travel?”
“The day after tomorrow…just give me until then.”
“I’ll let the chief know,” Rex said, with resignation. “Maybe Chantros will have medicine that’ll aid you in your recovery.”
Jed made rapid progress the rest of that day, and the next. Or at least he pretended to. He couldn’t afford for the others to think he wasn’t up to the trip and decide to delay it. Montrose was bound to have made some inroads into the Noragin and Skraeling villages as not all of them would have made it to the safety of the caves. And then, the caves weren’t necessarily the safest of places either. Not if Montrose discovered their whereabouts that was.
Jed gave some thought to his personal predicament. What use was he to the Noragin now? A legless warrior was all he was. Maybe he shouldn’t be going on to Chantros at all. He was only going to slow them down, and that would be playing straight into Montrose’s hands. The more time he had before their return the greater his chance of success.
“We need you with us,” Rex insisted, when Jed put the proposal of leaving him behind to him later on. “We need your brain. It’s you who has thought this whole campaign out.”
“I’m sure you’d be able to see it through from here.”
Maybe, but we have other things to consider as well,” Rex said wisely. “The Noragin and their allies consider you to be the mightiest of warriors. They will carry out all your orders without question. If Jonathon and I go back without you they just might not take orders from us. Montrose would easily defeat them then.”
Jed thought it over. Rex definitely had a point there. Although the Noragin had a lot of respect for both Rex and Jonathon they didn’t hero worship them like they did him. The Noragin would follow only him with unquestioning loyalty.
“When we tell them of how you defeated the dragon they’ll revere you even more. The fact that you’ve lost a leg in service to their people will only elevate you in their eyes.”
“It’s going to be a tough job carrying me all the way to Chantros, and then all the way back to the Noragin.”
“Chief is on to it, he’s going to escort us personally, and has assigned four young warriors to carry your stretcher.”
“What is that guy’s name?”
Rex laughed. “None of us know, he’s never told us, and so Jonathon and I just call him Chief now.”
“Has he told you how we’ll get into the city?”
“He knows where the door is, and that’s good enough for now. When we get there we’ll figure out some way of getting in.”
That aspect of things worried Jed. He was
sure Montrose must have known of the existence of Chantros. His helicopters would have flown over it many times over the years, so surely he had attempted to get into the city. If he hadn’t been able to get in what chance did they have?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rex said, “but we’ll put our heads together when we get there and work something out. There’s no way I’m going back to Frida with a failure story.”
Jed wasn’t really any better the next morning but he put on a good show. Amora was constantly hovering over him, fussing and fretting that he wasn’t up to the journey. “I’m fine, Sweetheart,” he lied. “I feel so much better with the source of that infection gone.”
“You’ll tell me if it gets too much for you, won’t you?” she pleaded, and he could see the desperation in her eyes as she spoke and knew full well that she doubted he was any better at all. “I’ll tell them to rest up until you’re feeling better.”
“Yes, of course I’ll tell you.” There was no way he was going to do that. He would be slowing them up enough as it was, and so the last thing they needed was for him to be taking constant rest stops. No matter how bad the pain got he was determined not to break down on them.
He realized how difficult it was going to be to keep that resolution the moment they loaded him onto the stretcher. Just the short movement from the mattress to the stretcher wracked him with pain.
“You all right, Buddy?” Rex was looking at him with concern. “Were we too rough?”
“No, I’m fine,” he answered, trying to sound as breezy as he could despite feeling the exact opposite. “I’m glad to finally get off that mattress.”
Lifting him through the door of the hut and beginning their descent through the village Jed was stunned to see the turnout. Every single soul in the place had turned out to see their brave dragon slayer off on his way to Chantros.
“Bless you,” someone called out. “Bless you for saving us from Nadrog.”
“Seems you become a hit no matter where you go,” Rex noted, as he walked alongside the stretcher.
“Thank you…thank you,” a mother with small children playing in the dust around her feet said as they passed her by. “Good luck at Chantros.”
“Chief was telling me that Nadrog was costing this village either a bull or a cow a day, and if they didn’t put one out he’d come up here to the village and take a person, usually one of the children.”
“I’m glad I could stop him then.”
“So are they. They may prove to be useful allies against Montrose when we return from Chantros,” Rex suggested.
“Yes, they would be useful if they would agree to help.”
“Oh they’ll agree all right,’ Rex said. “They’ll agree to anything their hero asks them to do. You are one of them now.”
At the entrance to the village someone had set up a pole and impaled Nadrog’s head on it. Children of varying sizes had surrounded it and were poking and prodding it with sticks. The ferocious dragon that had instilled so much fear in them only a few short days ago had now been relegated to a child’s plaything.
Within half an hour they had cleared the gully and were back out into the Forbidden Lands, Chief telling them that if all went well and they didn’t come up against any of the strange creatures that lurked there then they would be in Chantros within three days. Jed felt a rush of excitement at the prospect. All he had been able to think about these past few weeks was how he could defeat Montrose and free the people of this world from his tyranny, and now here he was, within three days journey of securing the help he needed to make it a reality.
Three days later they were in the mountains that contained Chantros, and true to his word Chief led them to a spot that overlooked the mysterious city. Far below, nestled in a narrow valley lay the domed city and Jed figured it must cover an area of at least three hundred acres. The dome itself appeared to be made of some type of opaque glass.
“It’s magnificent,” Rex said admiringly. “There’s nothing even remotely like this back home.”
“Do you know where the door is?” Jed was leaning over the edge of his stretcher as he spoke to Chief.
“It’s down there by that large tree.” Chief pointed to a round headed tree that Jed couldn’t identify that grew twenty feet or so away from the edge of the dome.
“Let’s get down there then,” Jed said enthusiastically. “We must find a way in.” He almost didn’t feel the pain that had been his constant companion for so long as they made the descent to Chantros, such was his excitement that he had finally reached the city and hopefully the device that would rid this world of Montrose.
“Well, this is it,” Jonathon said, as they reached the valley floor and stood before the enormous dome, “the not so fabled city of Chantros.”
Chief led the way to the doors. “This is the only way into the city that I know about.”
Rex walked up to the dome and checked it out. “I can’t see any doors,” he said eventually.
Chief grinned. “The opening is completely invisible. I only know that the doors are here because the last time I went through them I made a note that they were between that tree and that large rock sticking up out of the ground.”
“So how the dickens are we going to get in?”
“It only opens from the inside. You will only get in if they decide to let you in.”
“We’ll see about that,” Rex growled, as he unshouldered his rifle and sent the butt crashing into the smooth glass of the dome.
Jed laughed as he witnessed the rifle bounce back out of his friend’s hands. It appeared whatever material the dome was made out of was extra hard.
“There’s no breaking it,” Chief said, as the laughter died away. “It’s been tried many times before. Montrose even kindled a huge fire against it, but it didn’t even blacken the glass.”
Rex pressed his face to the surface and tried to peer inside.
“What can you see?” Jed wished he had his leg back right at this moment so that he could join Rex in seeing inside the magnificent dome.
“I can’t see more than a few yards in because it’s not really glass.” He tapped the dome several times with his knuckles which produced a ringing noise. “It’s kinda hazy looking, like Perspex.” He suddenly leapt back from the dome in fright. “There’s a man there, and he’s looking straight back at me. He’s a big man too, must be well over seven feet tall.”
“That would be one of the Chantrosians,” Chief said. “He’s come to see who’s trying to break into his city.”
Rex went back to where he had seen him.”Hello,” he called out, placing his palms against the dome in a gesture of friendship. “We mean you no harm it is merely your help we seek.”
A tall blond-haired man stared silently back at him for a moment before directing his eyes towards the rest of the party.
Rex looked over his shoulder at Chief. “Does he speak our language?”
“All Chantrosians speak the Sky-Gods language.”
“Take me to him,” Jed insisted. “I want to speak to him.”
The stretcher was placed on the ground before the dome, and Jed balanced on one leg in front of the door with an arm around Rex’s neck to steady himself. “We have travelled from far away to seek your help,” he began, “from a people who call themselves the Noragin.”
“The tall man slowly took him in, from his missing leg all the way up to his pain filled eyes.”
“You are not a Noragin,” he said, in the most perfectly spoken English, “you are an American.”
He knows much more than the people of this world do Jed thought. He knows Sky-Gods are really Americans. He must be thinking I’m one of Montrose’s men and this is a ruse to get into the city. “Yes, you are right in saying I am not a Noragin. But I am not in league with the Americans led by Colonel Charles Montrose. I am here to seek your help in defeating Montrose.”
The man looked past Jed to where the others stood. “You have no Noragin with you,” he said suspicious
ly.
Jed pointed to Amora. “She is a Noragin.”
“It is not unusual for American men to have Noragin women with them. Always against their will,” he added. “Her presence is meaningless.”
Amora stepped towards the dome. “I am not held against my will,” she insisted. “This man is my betrothed, and he is a good man who is trying to save my people from the Sky-Gods.”
The man of Chantros looked intently into Amora’s eyes, and Jed could tell he was mining them for the truth. “What help did you expect us to give you?” he asked Jed, now looking into his eyes.
“I didn’t expect you to give us any help,” Jed answered. “I just hoped that you would as I was told you are a people of peace. As a people of peace I knew you would hate men of violence as much as I do.”
“You presume a lot, American.”
“I am a desperate man who is throwing himself at the mercy of the Chantrosians,” Jed said. “I cannot defeat Montrose without your help, and if he is not defeated then this world and all who live in it are doomed.”
“We are a city in peril,” the Chantrosian revealed. “The Americans infected us with a disease they called meningitis. We have no cure for this disease as our scientists could come up with nothing to save our people’s lives.” He directed his gaze at Jed’s comrades. “We do not want you bringing a new disease into the city.”
“We are carrying no diseases.”
He looked Jed up and down again. “You do not look like you are very well.”
“I am only wounded,” Jed insisted. “None of us are carrying any diseases.”
The Chantrosian looked into Amora’s eyes again. “We can be of no use to you,” he answered Jed while still with his eyes locked on Amora’s. “Most of our scientists along with the majority of our people have been frozen in the sleep chambers for the last sixty years until we can find a cure.”
Jed had an idea. “Jonathon, bring me my pack.” Rummaging around inside his pack he pulled out the last tube of penicillin. “This is our cure for meningitis,” he said.
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