by Mark Tufo
“Stop! This has gone on long enough,” I told her. “We will wait here for your father, I figure he’ll be here around noon or so.” I sat down.
She turned to look at me. “Have you ever heard of the Right of Affiance?”
“No.” I broke a small piece of cheese off for Oggie and myself.
“If my father catches us he will use it.”
“What lies are you spewing now?” I asked, trying to get comfortable – a rock under my ass making that nearly impossible.
“If a couple lies together for the night the Right of Affiance is invoked.”
“Invoked? Sounds like something Azile would do. What are you getting at?”
“He will make us wed,” she said, a whimsical smile on her lips.
“Wed? Why?” I stood up quickly. “Wait…lie the night? We did no such thing!” I said hotly.
“My honor is at stake. He may detest you, but he will not allow his only daughter’s virtue to be sullied.” She was still smiling.
“This is another trick,” I told her, although I wasn’t so sure.
“Do you want to hang around and find out if I’m telling the truth?”
“What if I just tie you to a tree?” I asked. “Dad ‘rescues’ you.” I said with air quotes, her face took on one of confusion. I’m going with she’d never seen the gesture before. “And then I can be on my merry little way.”
“He will keep hunting for you, Michael Talbot. We are betrothed now.”
“I am not marrying you, Lana.”
“Then we’d better get moving,” she said, walking down the roadway.
“Son of a bitch,” I said, following her.
We had walked for about a mile before I asked her a question. “This isn’t another ploy?”
She smiled and kept going. Women have been beguiling men since the dawn of man, why should she be any different. Now it was imperative we caught up with the others, maybe Azile could fix this and then I’d exact my revenge on her.
When the wind shifted the right way, we could just make out the dogs barking. They had regained our scent, although I’m positive they’d never lost it. We hadn’t done anything to throw them off of us. Speed was going to be our only weapon. I had no real clue as to where Azile and Tommy had gone, there were tracks on the roadway, but they were far from the only travelers that used it. If they left the road at any pathway, I’d never know. How far would the chancellor chase his daughter? To the ends of the world would be my answer.
“If I knew how much this food and clothing was going to cost I would have stayed naked and hungry,” I told her.
She blushed.
“Sorry, wrong visual. I would have kept my old clothes. Here…take some cheese. We’ve got to find water soon or we’re all going to be in trouble soon.”
“You’re not a very prepared traveler.”
“I’ve run into a bit of a rough patch on this trip.”
“How far ahead are the friends that abandoned you?” she asked later that afternoon. I noticed that her steps were beginning to falter. She was exhausted, hungry, and most likely on the verge of dehydration.
The braying was getting louder. The dogs had an inkling of how close they were getting.
“Plan B it is,” I told her as I snatched her up into my arms. She gasped in surprise. “Oggie…water,” I said. We hadn’t yet established that he knew my words exactly, and I was unsure as to how he would react. For all I know he heard. ‘Oggie, blah-blah.’
Anything not immediately followed by the word ‘treat’ was generally ignored by him. He looked at me and the parcel I had strewn across my shoulder. He looked to the direction the dogs were barking, and then he immediately headed off the road. The traveling was extremely difficult, more than once we had to backtrack due to the underbrush becoming so dense. Lana periodically would protest her position, but it was weakly done. We both needed to replenish, but her even more so.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” she whispered in my ear as we moved. “I should not have done what I did. It was impetuous.”
“Wow…humility, took you long enough. How about a little honesty? The Rights of Affiance?”
“Is no lie.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said, pressing through a dense area of mulberry bushes. I momentarily lost sight of Oggie, I wasn’t overly worried we would lose him; Lana and I were about as stealthy as a drunken rhino.
When he returned, he was sopped from head to toe.
“You are the best dog ever!” I told him, giving him a large chunk of cheese. “Henry,” I said softly, pivoting my head upwards, “that doesn’t include you, you were my fourth kid.”
“Henry?” Lana asked, but she would not hear a reply even if I gave one; she had either passed out or fallen asleep. The only two types of people I’d seen sleep in the weirdest, most awkward ways were teenagers and military personnel. Either one could fall asleep at the drop of a hat with either rock music blaring or artillery shells raining down in the distance.
We pressed on and the denseness finally gave way to a fairly good-sized stream. It had to be about ten feet across, maybe two feet deep in the middle. What I wouldn’t have done for a canoe.
“Well, I guess we’ll see how good these dogs are trained.” I stepped into the icy coldness of the fast flowing water. I could hear horses now, they were panting heavily. The dogs were going berserk. They were at the roadway. I don’t think we had much more than a tenth of a mile on them at this point. But they were going to have a hell of a time getting the horses through this mess.
“Bring back my daughter!” bellowed forth from the chancellor.
I wanted to tell him I hadn’t taken her, but he wouldn’t see it that way. Odds were, he’d stick a spear in mywid spear gut and then ask.
“How the hell do I get in these situations?” I asked as I wallowed along in the stream. Oggie liked splashing in the water, but he wasn’t nearly as big a fan of staying in it. He kept going onto the banks shaking off and then coming back in.
“Father?” Lana asked, raising her head.
I moved towards the shore and put her down. “Get some water.”
She didn’t need to be told twice, she was scooping up handfuls. I shuddered thinking what manner of animals had used the stream as their personal rest stop. Old habits die hard. Right now dehydration was a much bigger enemy than Giardia. I also drank deeply; I was only somewhat appeased that nothing short of nuclear waste was going to affect me. Didn’t matter, drinking other animals’ feces and urine is not something I generally want on my menu.
“Lana, this doesn’t feel right. Seems more like a kidnapping.”
“I put you in this situation,” she said, letting her head dip a little. Water dropped from her chin.
“Can’t you go back and explain?”
“I don’t want to go back,” she pleaded.
“I get it…I do. I joined the Marines to see the world. Well, hold on, that’s a lie, I joined because it was that or jail. But I get it, there’s a big world out there and you want to see it, but coming with me this way is not how to accomplish it.”
The dogs were barking in the distance, the brush had slowed them down.
“See how they like being in the thorns for a while,” I said.
We rested for a few more minutes, sating our thirst.
“It’s too late now,” she told me. “He will not be able to bring me back without us being married. He’ll have the Trinity with him.”
“The Trinity?”
“The man that will perform the nuptials.”
“Talk about a pitchfork wedding.”
“What?”
“Old saying.”
“My father is a public figure; he cannot have the scandal of an unmarried daughter that has spent the night with a man.”
“We did not spend the night!”
“Yes, we did. It does not matter in the least that nothing happened.”
“Camping trips must be a blast. Have a bunch of weddings during the summ
er months I take it?” I asked sarcastically. “Wait...what if you stay here and you tell him I was killed?”
“Killed?”
“Yeah, giant salmon or something took me out. Maybe a knife wielding clown.”
“Clown?”
“Can you tell him I got killed and you’re just wandering around now?”
“They will still marry us.”
“So? Then you can get a divon>
“Widowed women can never marry again.”
“What? Who the hell makes these rules up? What if you were widowed and then stayed the night with a man?”
She blushed.
“You know what I mean…like we did.”
“Death for both.”
“You guys are worse than the Muslims.”
“Muslims?”
“Religious fundamentalists. Always took things to the extreme at the expense of all others…and themselves, I suppose. That makes about as much sense as non-alcoholic beer, WHICH by the way I would drink if this damn age would just make some. We can’t keep running forever and he won’t stop, Lana.”
“I know.”
“We’re done. We’ll wait here for him. I’ll explain…even give him a demonstration. I’m sure he doesn’t want his daughter married to a vampire.”
“Soul stealer.”
“Sounds much more menacing.”
“The old books say vampire, but we call your kind soul stealers. Usually just a story to scare the children. None of us believed you existed.”
“Yeah, sometimes I feel that way.”
The sun was beginning its journey down. I don’t know if the pace had slowed them up, or if they were as tired as we were, but they had seemingly stopped as well. The dogs were quiet, as were the men. The sun appeared to be handing the day over to the moon in a tag as they passed each other up. Something should have clicked in my head – but it hadn’t – the woods had gone silent. If not for Oggie’s nervousness, I would have been caught with my thumb firmly entrenched in my asshole.
My first assumption was that the pursuers had realized how close we were, and instead of having a loud barking pursuit, they had gone for stealth mode. I was partly right. I made sure Lana was more than a few arm lengths away so no one would think anything more than what was going on, was going on.
Lana had her hands in her face, I guess trying to figure out how she was going to face the music on this one. Hopefully the truth would set us free – only MLK knew. I was standing by a tree. Oggie came up next to me, bristling, a growl on the edge of his pulled back lips. Out of my peripheral vision I caught movement off to my right. A good ninety degrees from where I was expecting the chancellor and his men to come from.
“Did they encircle us?” I asked softly. The hair on Oggie’s back was raised so stiff he looked more like a porcupine hybrid. “We’ll be fine.” I caught more movement. Too fast and too big to be human. “Shit. Lana, get up!” I said quickly, motioning with my hand for her to come close.
“How close are they?” she asked, thinking I was referring to her father.
“Shhh.” I told her. “Werewolves.”
Her eyes looked like saucers, her breath quickened, and her wonderfully beautiful pulse raced. Wrong thought! I admonished.
She produced a wicked looking dagger from under her sleeve. I was impressed.
“Know how to use it?”
She nodded curtly.
“Would you have used that on me?” I had to ask.
“If I had to.”
“Fair enough.”
I’d been in enough scrapes in my life to wonder at the complexity of an event. For seemingly long moments nothing happened. The air was still, the breeze not even blowing for fear of missing something. I’d seen it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Little Turtle, Carol’s Farmstead, Camp Custer, and a dozen other places. Nothing, nothing, nothing, EVERYTHING!
“Unhand my daughter!” the chancellor said, springing from the woods with sword in hand. A few men on each side flanked him. I hoped they were enough. The dogs unfortunately were nowhere in sight.
The chancellor’s sword had not even the time to finish its sway and settle its point at me when the first of his men screamed out in alarm and pain. Blood splashed across the chancellor’s left side as the man on his flank farthest from him was torn open. By the time they turned, the threat had passed.
“What kind of sorcery is this?” the chancellor asked me as if I were responsible for it.
“Get over here!” I shouted at him. “Werewolves!”
I don’t think he believed me, but I was unarmed and his daughter was next to me; that was all the incentive he needed.
“Lana, are you alright?” he asked, rushing over. I noted he made sure to keep the blade leveled on my midsection. Honestly, couldn’t say I blamed him.
“Oh, father, I’m so sorry to have put you through this.” She cried on his arm.
Of the six men that had come with the chancellor five were now in a loose circle around us swords drawn, looking outwards.
“Where are the dogs?” I asked.
“I had them brought back to the roadway once we caught sight of you two,” Lana’s father told me.
As if on cue they began their barking.
“How many men are with them?”
“Three men, five dogs.” Then the cries and terrified screams of man and animal alike assailed our ears.
The men around us looked like they wanted to flee. Well, I guess so did I, but unless you could outrace the moon, that would mean certain death. There were growls and the shouting of men pitched in battle. We could hear the horses as they whinnied in alarm; the earth shook a little as they must have been rearing up and slamming down.
“Warhorses. They won’t run, they’ve been trained to attack,” the chancellor said.
The sound of swords singing as they sought targets was captured in the silence that enshrouded us. One by one, the horses, dogs, and men began to go silent – and not in the pre-victorious war-chant type of way.
I broke the small ranks and headed out.
“Where are you going, dwa you gocoward?” the chancellor asked me.
“Kind of harsh aren’t you?” I asked back as I bent over and picked up the sword from the man that had fallen first.
“Are you going to marry my daughter now that you sullied her?” he asked as I came back.
“First off, I did not sully her. The only time I touched her was to put her over my shoulder while she slept. And maybe right now isn’t the best time to talk about this. If we make it through the night, we’ll talk more.”
“Movement,” the man to my far right side said.
“Do not break this circle,” I told them. “We are going to have to rely on each other to protect our backs.”
The chancellor had a look on his face like ‘Who died and made you boss?’ but he held his tongue, because the likelihood that we were all going to die was pretty high, and at that point, who gave a shit who was in charge. The movement traced around our circle to the point where I could see it. The moon was bright enough for little else in the dense woods. I could get a sense of height and speed – neither of which I liked. Then a beast darted from behind a tree and was making great strides towards me. I’d like to think he came at me first because he figured me for the biggest threat, but most likely it was because of the inexperienced way in which I held my sword.
Small saplings unfortunate enough to be in between me and Bigfoot Junior found themselves quickly trampled underfoot. What I had at first figured for a scouting attack was actually a coordinated full on assault. Werewolves were charging from all sides, I did not have the luxury of time to turn and look. The cries of alarm and the cutting of air as swords moved back and forth was all I needed to hear.
The beast coming at me was huge, but more in the large – I mean large – human realm. Certainly not nearly the size of the monster I had squared off against a couple of nights ago. I still wouldn’t want to face this thing in a darkened alley – or
a lit up one, but you get the point. It was scary as hell and had a murderous intent, but it was not the same creature Azile had paired me against.
A large paw swiped down towards my head. I instinctually moved my hand to deflect the blow. My sword pierced the werewolf’s hand. He howled in rage as he brought his other arm up. His teeth snapped violently as he pressed the attack. I ripped my sword free, severing two of its fingers. A strange dog-like whine whistled through its nose. His uninjured arm crashed against my side, rocketing me into a tree. I was partly grateful that I had the tree to stop my momentum as I was hurtled away…and pained as I collided with the immoveable wooden object.
I was fairly convinced my left shoulder was dislocated, aggravating an old injury that had never been properly treated. I grunted as I rammed my shoulder into the tree, the audible pop let me know I had reengaged the mechanism. I ducked as the werewolf swiped at my head. Two swaths of bark were sheared away; leaving bloody streaks where my head had been. Had I not made my new friend a permanent lefty, he would have ripped off the top of my head.
Somewhere distant I heard a man scream, I was so far removed from everything as my world was reduced to my opponent and myself. That was all that mattered, my survival, his death. Steel slashed as I had the audacity to press the attack. There was a moment (most likely in my imagination) where the werewolf couldn’leclf coult believe my nerve. He pressed on and I caught him high on the chest, slicing a wound that would have stopped a man. As he moved past it, my sword sliced into his biceps, the muscle curling as I cleaved it. Now I had his attention. His rage howling drowned out everything around me. He rushed past my sword, making it no more effective than a bullet-less rifle.
I didn’t have the room to back up; our circle had been compressed to a dot. We were fighting for our existence on an insignificant parcel of land the size of a kitchen table. I didn’t yet know who lived and who had fallen, that would have to wait. When I could back up, that would mean I was on my own. The werewolf was inches from my face, his muzzle dripping saliva all over my hand as I fought to hold him at bay. His left arm had fallen to its side, almost useless, and he could not get a grip on my arm with his now disfigured right.
My shoulder screamed as I caught him under the jaw line. I could feel his windpipe begin to close as I clamped shut. His feet began to rise up as I simultaneously cut his air supply off and lifted him into the air. I thrust him back far enough that I could pierce his chest with the sword. I shoved it through his chest plate and then wrenched the steel upwards. Cutting through his being, the left side of him began to slough off. I quickly pulled my sword all the way up, and with a determined slice, I chopped his head off. I kicked his body away before he had the chance to fall.