by Dave Hazel
The Soso complied and put his bloody right foot through the bars. He rambled on in the Soso tongue while his foot bled profusely onto the dirt floor.
“I don’t know what he said to you,” Mykal said to the leader, but I put a hole in his foot. I could have easily done that to his head, his chest, his arm or his hand. I could have put that hole anywhere on his body where I wanted it to be. So, I’m telling you not to piss me off. Don’t make me angry is what I mean. When I ask a question I expect an answer. I’m not some little flunky, some low rank little warrior who is told what to do. I tell people what to do,” he snarled dramatically and jammed his index finger down to get his point across. “And they do it or they suffer. Do you understand me?” He snarled for effect.
“Yes. I understand your words,” the leader said and looked at Mykal fearfully.
“I know you do, because I know you are a leader over great many warriors like me. I know you fear or rather have great respect for Towbar because of what a great warrior he is. I am telling you right now, you want to fear me in the same way. I have ways to make you suffer that Towbar can not,” he said and turned to wink at Towbar who nodded his agreement to back up what Mykal said. “So now I will ask you a simple question again,” Mykal said and deliberately laughed. He caught sight of the Soso on the right side who seemed to be more terrified than before. “Do you want to go free to join your army?”
“Yes,” they all responded simultaneously.
“Now, was that so hard?” Mykal asked and cocked his head as if he expected an answer.
“No. It was not difficult,” the leader answered and lowered his head as if he had been humiliated.
“Good. Now we understand each other. I’m going to ask you some questions that are important to me,” Mykal said and bore into the leader. “You do not want to anger me,” Mykal said and thought himself invisible to the shocked surprise of the Sosos. He rushed to the bars and pulled his flaming blade and turned himself visible while he pressed his face to the bars and made an evil expression and sliced his sword through the cross bar. “You won’t like me if I get angry,” he shouted as insanely as he could act.
The Soso leader jumped back as far as he could in his cell but the chain attached to his handcuffed wrist prevented him from going all the way back inside the little prison cell. The Soso leader fell to the floor and cried out in his native tongue. He pleaded and begged not to be harmed with his right hand stretched out as far as he could pull back. He knew he faced a powerful magic and didn’t want to die while it was dark.
Mykal turned himself invisible and walked back to Towbar. He returned to the flesh amid the gasping groans and pleading. “So do you understand what is going to happen to you if you do not answer my questions?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the leader replied from the floor with his hands in the air in a submissive manner.
Mykal knew the Soso didn’t fear dying, but Mykal showed him the unknown involving magic. “Answer my questions and I will let you go free. If you do not answer my questions you will die a most painful death during the night. Then I will go capture others until I get someone to answer my questions. But you have an opportunity to go free if you answer my questions. Do you understand what I just said?”
“Yes,” he answered from the floor and wouldn’t look up at his captor.
“Where is the Princess Doninka who was capture several days ago by the dragons that flew into the Pass?”
The Soso on the left didn’t seem to hear the question. He appeared to be more concerned with stopping the flow of blood to his right foot and comforting the pain that wouldn’t cease. The Soso on the right looked panicky as if he didn’t know what to do. Mykal was sure threats had been made to the Soso warriors not to speak of the ‘special capture’ they had.
The leader looked up and breathed a heavy sigh. “As one leader to one leader. May I speak to you oh powerful leader?”
“Speak,” Mykal said. The expression the Soso gave was one of defeat. He looked like he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
“If you grant me my freedom for speaking what I know, my life will be taken for speaking what is not meant to be spoken of. If I withhold the knowledge I have, my life will be taken by your hands. I do not want to lose my life for speaking secrets. However, I do not desire to lose my life for holding my tongue. I am a warrior. I need to die a warrior’s death. I need not die a prisoner’s death,” he said and the Soso on his right listened intently to his words. The Soso on his left seemed to be listening but he was caught up in the pain of his injury. Both his hands were covered in his own blood while he held tightly to his damaged foot.
“What are you trying to say?” Mykal asked. “Are you trying to make a deal of some kind?” Mykal asked and was amused by Towbar’s surprised reaction to what was taking place.
“I will tell you all that I know for my life,” the Soso leader said. “Though I do not want my freedom for I fear it will cost me my life. I am a distant relation to the throne of Monahakald. When this war was to be ended I would have been promoted to governor of a large city or a small province. The wars can not go on forever. Either you will lose and we will conquer you or we will lose and we will have to return home to pick up the pieces to rebuild our nation. There is a new breed of leaders rising who are like myself. We are tired of the wars and the bloodshed. It will take time to change the thinking of the people who are aligned with the ways of old. However there is a movement afoot,” the leader declared and raised his finger as if giving a speech. “At this time it is only a minority. This movement has started and it will only grow.”
“What about this stuff of your gods requiring all the blood sacrifices and that’s why your people are always at war?” Mykal asked and had to fight the laugh brought on by Towbar’s shocked expression.
“It is true. Our people worship several gods and each is more evil and much more wicked than the previous for different reasons.”
“You’re not a committed fanatic?”
“I am not sure what you mean by such a term. In the Soso tongue I am called a Lans-tanto. The word means ‘one who is not sure which god to believe in’, thus ‘I am viewed as uncertain of which god to commit to’. The truth is it is an excuse for my true beliefs. I should be called a Lans-drandomatti which means ‘one who does not believe in any god’. To carry the name Lans-drandomatti means certain death. To say that one does not believe in any god is to call all their gods liars, pretend and imaginary, false and deceptive, thus their followers have the right to expel any such person from the land of the living. To be unsure and to be in a state of searching is acceptable. I carry the name Lans-tanto, as one who still searches, for the purpose only to please my parents. The reality is I have long ago stopped believing in gods for all the wickedness I have seen brought about in the name of these false deities. I say this in their presence,” he said and pointed to the cells on both sides of him, “only for the fact that we have the same beliefs. The people of my lands need to have their understanding opened and their hearts changed.”
“What brought about your change? Or what made you realize you didn’t believe in their gods?” Mykal asked and saw that Towbar was totally fascinated by the discussion of this Soso.
“I had two sons. One was six years the other five years. My woman and I could not have more children. I prayed to all the gods and I sacrificed greatly. I am a great warrior and skilled in battle,” he said without sounding like a braggart. “I presented much spilling of blood before the altar of the gods to bring more sons into the world. My sons were going to be raised to be mighty warriors devoted to the spilling of blood to appease our gods. While I was away at war, killing in the name of our gods, presenting the heads of many to the gods in order to win their favor, so they would open my woman’s womb, to enable us to have more children, more warriors to serve these gods, my woman had been convinced to sacrifice to the gods herself. She had been convinced she needed to sacrifice in order for the gods to open her womb.
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He paused for a brief moment and looked down in despair. “Without consulting me, she sacrificed my two sons on the altar of these gods with the belief she would bare many more children to replace the two she offered to the gods and then add many more to our family. She sacrificed my sons, our children, in vain,” he declared with disdain. “Her womb was never opened. She never bore more children,” he said sadly and kept his head lowered in sorrow. “The gods lied to her,” he said miserably with a hint of sarcasm.
“I kept the matter to myself to see if the gods would in turn multiply the offering she presented to the gods. The gods did not answer our petition. The gods, the gods, the gods,” he repeated and each time his voice rose to show his internal disappointment and anger. “The gods did not show their gratitude for such a great sacrifice,” he added sarcastically again. “I was denied the two sons who were born into our home. After four years of pleading to all the gods, my woman took her own life for robbing me of my sons and for destroying the fruit of her womb based on a lie. My woman was crushed and died a wretched pitiful broken hearted shell of her former self.
“She had always lived to serve her man and the gods,” he added and the words carried a deep ache that would never go away. “I then knew they were not real or they were just cruel to those who worshipped them under their violent guidelines. I soon discovered there were others who were just as disillusioned with this form of meaningless worship as I. There were others who were as disenchanted of these worthless deities as I,” he repeated as if to get it out in the open. “However, one had to be careful what one said about the gods. Our entire lives we had been raised to believe that what we had been doing was right, true and holy with a great purpose. To say that I was shocked and disappointed is an understatement. The sad fact was I had to keep the matter to myself, to keep it all inside my being, or I would lose my life. There was no tolerance for any person who spoke ill of the gods. Yet one could be a Lans-tanto, one who still searched the heavens in order to find the right god even if that journey to find the right god took one’s entire life time.
“The more I dwelled on this the more I understood what a mockery this was,” he scoffed out of a deep sense of betrayal. “I did discover there were many others like myself. I pondered this over and over and tried to understand how our entire nation could have been trapped into such beliefs for such a long time. It has been for generations upon generations. The blood sacrifices were easy because we are a warring nation. The personal sacrifice of half of all we own or earn was easy as well because we all believed the gods would provide.”
“Fifty percent of all you earn and own?” Mykal asked and was surprised. “Who does that go to?”
“The priests. Everything goes to the priests first and then to the governing bodies up to and including King Monahakald.”
“That is something. What a friggin racket they got going,” Mykal laughed lightly and saw none of them understood him. “And it always seems to come back to the money,” Mykal said with another laugh and turned to Towbar who looked more than surprised by the conversation. Mykal was at a loss of how to respond to the man. He knew Ski or Captain Diaz would handle him differently, but Mykal didn’t want it to be a discussion of whose God or god or gods was better.
The Soso leader looked directly at Towbar. “I believe a change is coming, though I do not know when and I do not know if it will be strong enough to stop the wars between our nations any time soon. Nonetheless, a change is coming.”
“I hope your words are correct and that they occur quickly,” Towbar finally spoke.
“What is your name?” Mykal asked.
“I am called Scodtull.”
“Okay Scodtull. I think we can help you. I said I would give you your freedom if you answer my questions. But, if you don’t want to be released we can help you by keeping you here. I need to know where the woman was taken to, the one who had been captured by dragons. You know who I’m talking about, right?’ Mykal asked and stared intently into the man’s eyes. Mykal hoped Scodtull hadn’t been leading him on this entire time.
“I know who you speak of. She is a woman of great importance. She is daughter to the king of your lands,” he said and turned to Towbar. “I do not know of her whereabouts. However, I do know she was taken to the palace of Zizmon-Tarl to be held until the High Holy Day. There was talk of a trade and that trade will be carried out on the holy day. That would be a trap and my people will attempt to eliminate both of them at the same--”
“Wait a minute,” Mykal stopped him when he realized what Scodtull said. “Do you mean Zizmon-Tarl’s palace, as in, on the other side of the world?”
“I do not know where his palace is. It is in his home land. Zizmon-Tarl is the great Supreme Leader that our king, King Monahakald, serves with whole hearted devotion. Our wars with the southern lands,” he said and turned to Towbar again. “Are the result of Zizmon-Tarl’s rule over King Monahakald. It is Zizmon-Tarl who desires to rule all the lands. He desires for all the world to worship him as my people worship their various gods. I have never met Zizmon-Tarl though I know he had recently sent special envoys and unique forces to help in our current war.
“My understanding, from what I have heard, is that Zizmon-Tarl has visited our lands recently,” Scodtull continued. “I do not know if he personally took possession of the princess you now seek. My knowledge is limited. I have heard that Zizmon-Tarl and his captive, the princess, are back at his palace in his own lands. I would not know how to get there. I do believe he will bring the girl here for the holy day festival and celebration in thirty-two days. I can not speak of her condition and I can not speak of her treatment. For when she was in our company after the dragons and their riders captured her, my people, the Sosos, my people were not allowed to have contact with her.”
“Whatta ya think Towbar?” Mykal turned to his giant friend.
“I believe he has spoken truth,” Towbar said after eyeing the man the entire time he spoke.
“I think so too. Look,” Mykal turned to Scodtull. “I told you I would give you your freedom if you answered my questions. You did. For the time being I’m going to keep you guys locked up to keep you safe. The hatred of Towbar’s people and your people is that great that I wouldn’t be able to stop them. You will be well cared for and well fed. I will get some medical people in here to fix up your foot,” he added and turned to the man he shot. He didn’t apologize because he warned them in the beginning. “We will have to figure out what we’re gonna do after me and Towbar discuss this. Hey Marine,” Mykal yelled to the two guards he knew were at the opening.
“Yes Sir Myk,” the sergeant replied and they both rushed in as if they expected to have trouble.
“I need one of you to run and get medical people here ASAP. One of the prisoners had been shot,” Mykal said and tried not to laugh while he pointed to the bleeding, moaning, Soso. “When you get asked what happened tell them you don’t know. Maybe he tried to escape or maybe it was an accident,” he laughed. “Just tell them you don’t know what happened. Hurry, go.”
“Are you a high leader?” Scodtull asked while stroking his beard.
“Yes I am. And obviously Towbar is a high leader too,” Mykal said to use his term. “Tell your man, I am having doctors come in here to tend to his injury and that he shouldn’t try to harm them. If he does my men will kill him. Okay?”
“I agree. We will not struggle,” Scodtull promised. “We will speak when you can return.”
Mykal and Towbar walked out of the tent and walked away from everyone. Mykal wanted to speak in private before letting Chick and the others know anything. “Towbar, do you think he was being honest with us?”
“I have never known a Soso well enough to have a conversation with one before. Based on the words spoken I would lean toward the belief that he spoke truth to us. What would he gain by deceiving us with such a wild tale?”
“He could be lying to keep us from going into the Soso camp or into their lands to try
to find her,” Mykal offered. “But if he is lying he went all out by telling us one hellova story to get his point across. I personally think he was telling us the truth. But set that aside for a minute, the whole thing of his loss and suffering. What if he is telling us the truth? What if Zizmon-Tarl is holding her until he returns her to swap her for her father? I don’t believe it will go well for either Doninka or her father. Even if we come up with an elaborate plan to swoop in and grab her before the trade takes place I really am afraid something will happen to both of them.”
“What do you suggest my friend? I am open to all possibilities.”
“When the Lost Patrol was lost on the other side of the world, remember that’s what they called our group who was lost,” Mykal said and looked to the stars in the sky while he thought back. “Well when we first met the baby people as we called them, they were grownups trapped in toddler bodies, Perup, the leader, said Zizmon-Tarl’s home was twenty days away in whatever direction they pointed in. But we went through all kinds of bad shit when we were on that side of the world.”
“Are you saying you do not want to travel to that part of the world, my friend?”
“No, not at all. I wanna rescue Doninka and I’ll go through hell to get her, but it was bad. We could be a little more prepared this time and since the Elves came from that part of the world I would ask Starling, Leeno and Blair if they would be willing to go with us. Maybe Nordad would go too.”
“I will bring whatever force you would like me to bring from my army, my friend. However, your men would be much better equipped.”
“No, we’ll definitely bring my men and weapons, but one thing that may help us Towbar,” Mykal paused to make sure no one could hear what they were saying. “Since we can use the green fog to move from place to place, we could travel for so long, come back and re-supply and return because we have to have the place in mind when we use the green fog. So hopefully that will help to minimize the danger to the men.”