I clipped the weapon off to my single point sling on my right shoulder, and then inspected the chamber for the fiftieth time. A round was firmly seated in the bolt. With the release of the charging handle, followed by a tap of the forward assist, I strolled confidently through the entrance, which was nothing more than a hole with a blanket over it.
Nothing could prepare me for the assault on my nose. Ballsack, sweat, piss, and shit, filled my nostrils. If it hadn't been for a long preparation of five-mile runs on Camp Casey, I'm sure I would have vomited.
Steeling myself, I made my way through the straw covering the hard-packed floor to the makeshift bar directly across from the entrance.
Upon reaching the bar, which was surprisingly well polished, I took a look to my left and my right.
Five meters away sat four people; three burly looking humans in a conglomeration of leather, scale, and a couple of pieces of plate, and one large orak missing an ear.
The orak was big, even for his type. He probably weighed five hundred pounds and stood seven feet tall. A large nasty looking club, with a bunch of spikes protruding from it, adorned the table in front of him. Directly behind him, sitting on the dirt floor, with a rope around her neck, was a girl with jet black hair. Her face was bloody, and her eyes darkened by what I was sure was more than a single punch. Even though she appeared to be a slave, she had a look of defiance.
I was going to enjoy this.
I surreptitiously moved the safety on my M4 to semi and looked back at the man on the other side of the bar.
"Payment upfront," he said in a grizzly voice while tapping the counter with a single finger.
I was still getting used to their accents, as well as my lack of local knowledge. The fact was, we rely on so many slang terms and colloquialisms that it was difficult for me to communicate the first week I had been in Teletha. Six months later, and I was just scratching the top of the language.
I pulled six clacks from my dump pouch and dropped them on the bar. Six clacks were enough to buy sixty drinks. Buy sixty drinks, and cause the bartender to become my new best friend.
"Forgive me, me lord," he said, bowing slightly.
I smiled at him and said, "Ale from a clean cup, and a round for all in the tavern!" I'm sure my accent sounded strange to him, but he got the point.
I needed to throw my money around, and make the unsavory local types either attack me or try to become my new best friend.
I had made a mistake the first time I ordered a drink in a tavern, of not specifically requesting a clean cup. Some people in Teletha say it makes you a dandy to request a clean vessel, or perhaps you think yourself a king. I just don't like drinking after drunken, backward inbreds who still think sacrificing virgins will stop the rain.
"Rich man gonna buy us some ale," came a voice from my right.
The voice was guttural, deep, and threatening.
The chair the ugly orak sat in groaned as he shifted his weight to stand.
Maybe six hundred pounds, I thought to myself.
I turned and smiled at the slowly approaching pig thing. His skin was pink, his eyes large, his nose upturned, ears pointed, and two large tusks jutted from his lower jaw. He had no weapon in his hand, not that he needed it.
I once saw an orak bouncer in Teletha literally rip a man's arm off at the shoulder. They were strong violent assholes.
"A round for all," I said, flipping him the bird. In Teletha, the middle finger meant nothing. The local equivalent of fuck you, was a thumb and middle finger connected over the chest. It roughly meant your ass is in your heart.
"A lot of coins you got? Maybe you give them to me for protecting you," the orak said, still approaching.
I had once thought manipulating assholes into attacking you was going to be difficult. After all, how many times have you been assaulted out of the blue, without picking a fight? In the US, it's rare. In Teletha, it was Tuesday.
His cronies, sitting at the table behind him, laughed sycophantically.
Unimaginative and unoriginal.
"Protecting me from what?" I asked with mock confusion.
He stopped and let out a fake laugh.
The sheep behind him bleated as well.
"Give me your coins, or I'll crush your head like a melon," he demanded.
Private Travensky was that one guy in our platoon who had a hard drive with like ten billion movies on it, with at least half of it porn. One of the movies we always watched as a group was Way of the Gun. The opening is probably the best build-up to a fistfight I had ever seen. Piggy over there had no finesse, no wit, just, "Me big, so you give."
"Should I fear you? I don't even have your name," I said, taking a step back and reaching down to my side where the pistol grip on my M4 laid.
No doubt he thought I was going for a pouch or a knife, so he had no idea what I was doing.
"Have you not heard of Mavik the Crusher?" he said triumphantly, raising his arms in the air like Rocky knocking out Mister T.
When I first saw him, I was sure the foul animal in front of me was Mavik, and I was glad to see it confirmed. The Crusher part was new; however, no doubt, the name was greatly applauded by the simpleton thugs sitting at the table to their rear.
"Your head is worth five hundred clacks," I said, smiling. My right hand gripped the M4 tightly, and I pulled it up to shoulder level. At three meters, Mavik was still a threat. I didn't softly squeeze the trigger but instead jerked it hard, my heart thumping the entire time. A loud crack deafened the entire inn, as Mavik took a shot to the chest.
Normally a man would have fallen from a shot like that, but oraks were vicious, and his stunned look wouldn't stay there forever. The good thing was, oraks had one heart, just like a human. I grabbed the gangster grip with my left hand, brought the small backup sight on top of my ACOG up to my eye, and put three more rounds into the large orak. The rounds didn't exit his back.
He fell to his knees and then slumped to the floor, dark red blood pooled over the straw and dirt.
Before his idiot cronies had a chance to react, I targeted each one and put a round through their heads. Within five seconds, the entire ordeal was done.
"Hooves, balls, and mouth; what was that?" the bartender yelled, covering his ears.
I inhaled deeply. For a brief moment, the smell of cordite overpowered the sweat, blood, and piss. Flashes of my time at the COP in Afghanistan made me nostalgic.
"This is my boomstick!" I yelled, imitating good Ashe and looking around to see if anyone smiled or laughed. No one did.
Doc once told me that a man's body might gasp for breath as he dies. It's like when your leg kicks as your falling asleep.
The orak started gasping.
Damn, he stank.
I walked over with my hatchet, which was supposedly magical, and pretended I was Taliban, and the orak on the ground was a journalist. Too soon?
Anyway, off I pulled the head. I strung a rope with a metal hook in through the neck and out the mouth. It was like fishing when I was a kid.
The money on the bar hadn't moved. It wasn't technically stealing if he hadn't taken it, right? I retrieved my clacks.
The bartender didn't object.
Letting the M4 hang on the single point, I bent down and retrieved my spent casings. I was still holding on to them, even though I hadn't found a way to reload them.
Taking one final look around the room, I turned and walked out to Rover.
He pawed at the ground at my approach.
"Hey, buddy! Did you miss me?" I asked as I kissed his muzzle.
He nibbled me back.
I walked around the saddle and placed the head on a metal hanger designed for just that reason.
In a second, I had mounted Rover and was on my way back to the capital.
"Master! Master!" a woman's voice called.
Confused, because it sounded like someone was directing their attention towards me, I turned around.
A woman with jet black hair, a rope still around her neck
, and two black eyes came rushing towards the ass end of my horse.
I circled Rover and looked down upon the freedwoman.
Sitting tall, I bellowed in a grandiose gesture, "No need to thank me, citizen."
She cocked her head to the side like a shepherd.
"Master, I beg you, please, take me with you," she pleaded.
"No thanks, I'd rather not," I said with a fake British accent. The fact was, this wasn't the first peasant who wanted to tag along, and if history told me anything, it wouldn't be the last.
"Please, my lord," she said, starting to cry.
Look, I've never been married, and I was an only child, so I wasn't immune to the whole crying thing yet. Slowly but surely, each of my heartstrings was being plucked like a chord.
"My brother and my mother are slaves," she said, tears streaming down her face.
"Donker's dick," I cursed.
She started to sob uncontrollably. Her lips quivered, and her chest heaved. "I don't know where they are," she groaned between breaths. "They're probably dead, or worse."
"Get on," I said, reaching down to pull her up.
She grabbed my hand, and I hoisted her to Rover's hind.
Almost instantly, the crying stopped. "Such a large and powerful beast," she commented. "Is he a Rodadrian?"
"Clydesdale," I lied. I honestly had no idea the difference between a racehorse and a mule, but everyone seemed to think Rover was part Rodadrian, so I usually went along with it.
"What's his name?" she asked whimsically.
The woman just went from a crying bag of sad to whimsical twenty-year-old in a half-second. That should have been my first clue.
Chapter 10
How do you cram a two day ride into what feels like two weeks? Simple, take a woman. I'm not a misogynist by any sense of the word, but women make life nothing but hard.
"My name's Cloy," she said innocently.
I grunted in acknowledgment.
"What's yours?" Cloy asked, reaching around my waist to hold on.
"Nope, no no no," I said, chastising her. "No waist holding, no hugging, no high fiving."
"What's a high five?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter 'cause you won't be doing it," I retorted.
We only walked about fifty meters since she sat on the back of my horse. I just want to reiterate that Rover is no slouch, either. He doesn't meander.
"I'm a great cook, you know," she said without skipping a beat. "Best cook in my village, all the wives said so. Said I was the best prize as a wife. Had a dozen prospects, maybe more. Hunters, merry men, even had a paladin interested," she rambled.
I quickly got a word in, "How much does a donkey or a horse cost in the farmlands?"
"Eight clacks for a donkey, twenty for a horse, why?" she asked.
I hit my heels into the side of Rover and pulled on the reigns hard, directing Rover towards a ranch house. The yard around it held no less than ten animals, all of which seemed to be well fed.
Rover launched forward, nearly sending Cloy off the back. She wrapped her arms around me and held tight. I considered reaching down to undo her fingers but thought better of it.
We reached the fence nearest the house, and I hitched Rover, who stood at least two feet higher than the others in the yard.
The horses backed away from my friend.
"What are we doing?" Cloy asked.
"Figure it out," I said in my best Canadian accent.
The door to the house was wood and had a nice little square in the center with two iron bands forming a cross in the center. I banged politely on the frame as if I were entering a promotion board.
Moments later, the center square with the iron cross opened, and a grizzled set of grey eyes peered back at me. "What you want?
I don't like people, and I don't like small talk unless I'm drinking. "A horse," I said.
"Not for sale," he replied, ready to shut the little window/door.
I rolled my eyes and noticed the pitter-patter of little annoyance walking up to me.
"We can ride together it's OK," she said, tugging on my arm.
I pulled a Dwight Schrute and wrenched my arm free. "Ten clacks," I offered.
"For ten clacks, you can have a sheep," he said.
"Donker's dick," I cussed again. "Fifteen."
"Fifteen get you one and half sheep," he said greedily.
The old man knew he had me over a barrel, and there was no way I was going to ride all the way back to Teletha with that woman sitting with her mouth near my ear.
"How much for a fucking horse," I said.
He looked at me quizzically, "No fucking horses here. Never heard of that breed, but I'll let my old mare go for an even twenty, and I'm only doing that 'cause I don't want Donker nor Bryckon to curse me land."
"Bryckon would let it go for fifteen," I retorted. "Two feet, one hand. Fifteen."
He eyed me suspiciously. "Eighteen," he said.
I smirked a little.
"Because he has two good ears to listen and one mouth to speak," Cloy added innocently.
The man looked at her closely, "Fine, fifteen."
"Thank God," I replied.
"Which one?" Cloy asked.
I counted out fifteen coins and passed them through the window/door thing.
"The brown and white mare. She's sterile and on her last ten, but she'll be enough to carry that sodding wench," he said, shutting the little window and walking away.
"I'll find it," Cloy cried excitedly and ran towards the fence.
I walked over to the makeshift stable on the corner of the yard and helped myself to a lead, some oats, and few sugar cubes. For fifteen clacks, the old man wouldn't mind.
I made my way back to Rover and gave him three cubes while I popped one. Sugar was a rare commodity in Teletha, and I enjoyed the horse treats from time to time.
Cloy came trotting up on a big beautiful brown and white horse. She had expert control of the animal, even though there was no saddle nor reigns.
Rover eyed the mare suspiciously, as I did the same with Cloy.
"Good rider, huh?" I asked.
She beamed a smile back at me, "In my village, I was one of the best riders. A true delight to see on horseback, I was."
I kicked the sides of Rover and went off in a gallop as the woman continued to tell the air about her equine exploits.
Four hours later, and day transitioned to dusk. I really wanted to ride through the night, but I knew I needed my wits about me, especially when I was in sight of Teletha City.
"Oh, are we stopping?" Annoying said.
"Yes," I responded curtly.
"Really, because I figured you wanted to get back to deliver your bounty. I heard bounty hunters always ride straight back so no other bounty hunters can steal their prize. I also heard that the heads start to smell," she said without taking a breath.
I sucked in a lung full of air and counted mentally to three.
"Teletha is not a place you want to be at night," I replied, and pulled the assault pack off of my horse.
She looked behind her at the trail we laid with concerned eyes.
"Expecting someone?" I asked as I proceeded to pull an M67 frag grenade from the pouch attached to the side of the main pouch, and transferred it to my pocket.
"Eww, what's that?" she asked, getting down from the horse and walking towards me. She immediately stopped, bent over, and rubbed her inner thighs.
"Something wrong?" I asked, enjoying the moment.
"No saddle," she said and laid on her back and began flexing her legs.
I pulled the saddle and blanket from Rover and placed it gently on the ground. Without being asked, the horse started wandering, looking for a bite to eat.
"Walk around, it'll feel better," I said as I too started to wander. I had my M4 still on my single point and ensured a fresh mag was in it.
She rolled over and followed me. Rolling hills and plains with copses of trees darted the land, and I had picke
d a small depression that I had spotted on the way in. It was only about fifteen feet deep and maybe one fifty meters across, but at night it wouldn't be visible from the main road.
"What are we doing?" she asked, running up behind me.
"Seeing if anyone followed us out of town," I responded.
I made my way to the highest point near the road and pulled up my M4's ACOG. "Wish I had a fucking spotting scope or some thermals," I lamented.
"Me too," she responded.
I looked sideways at her and quietly said, "You don't even know what those are."
"True, but if a great warrior like you desires them, then they are worth more than gold I'd wager," she said, smiling.
I wasn't sure if I should be impressed or shocked. It was the first intelligent thing Annoying had said since I met her, "Can't argue with that."
She beamed a victorious smile, and then in what I can only assume was a desire to ruin the moment, asked, "Are you the warrior that slew the Archmage?"
I breathed in again and answered the same question that had been asked a million times before, "Yes."
"You ruined my life," she said without emotion.
That was not the response I expected. In fact, when it was found that the tyranny of the Archmage had ended, there was a celebration for a ten-day straight.
I regathered myself, "Were you his concubine?"
She was shocked by the question and answered indignantly, "No."
"Sister? Daughter? Niece? Wife?" I continued my question.
"No," she answered affronted.
"Then how the fuck did I ruin your life?" I asked, defending myself.
"Forget it," she said, walking back towards where I put my saddle and bag.
"Fuck's sake," I said to myself.
Satisfied we were not being followed; I made my way back to camp as well.
I grabbed the two-quart off of my saddle and dropped it at Sulking's feet.
She hoisted the canteen and examined it quizzically.
"Water," I said, and pantomimed unscrewing the lid.
She followed the instructions, tilted the canteen, and within thirty seconds had downed almost a full quart.
I pulled off my plate carrier and put it on top of my assault pack. I then pulled my woobie out and leaned back against the makeshift pillow I had set up.
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