by K. C. Herbel
“Here,” he said handing her the purse, “hide this in the usual spot.”
Moira stood with the bag in her hand, dumbfounded.
“Now, woman!”
John was not in the habit of calling his wife “woman” in that tone of voice, nor was Moira in the habit of answering anyone who did—that included her husband—but the fear in his eyes made her drop the matter and follow his order.
John ran into the commons room and continued right up the stairs into the room his recently departed guests had inhabited. Frantically he straightened up the room and opened the window. As he did, he saw that the creatures had almost reached the inn. Out of breath, John raced back downstairs. He stuck his head in his own bedroom and saw that little William was still sleeping in his crib then closed the door and headed to the kitchen.
Rascal was howling and scratching at the door. Moira, anxious to have the dog quiet, opened the door to let him out. Suddenly Rascal didn’t want to go out. Instead, he backed away and ran whimpering into the pantry.
Moira frowned at him and shook her head. “What’s the matter with the men in this house today. Yer all actin’ . . .”
At that moment John came breathlessly into the kitchen. He saw Moira at the open door and leaped towards her.
“Close the door!” he yelled as she stepped aside.
John came into contact with the door, and his weight started to force the door closed. Suddenly the door exploded back into the room, knocking John to the floor. One of the monstrous beast-men was now in the doorway, crouched on the unhinged door. It snarled at John and smiled with its large drooling maw. Moira, horrified by the hideous visage, screamed and backed towards the pantry as the creature eyed her hungrily. Its eyes grew large as it saw the terror on their faces, and its smile broadened. John scooted back from the door with his eyes on the beast. Slowly it advanced on him, playfully stalking him, taking great pleasure in his fear. Finally it had John backed into a corner. It sniffed at John and then hissed, sounding something like a laugh. John’s stomach turned as the odor of the monster’s hot breath impacted his senses. With lightning speed the loathsome thing snapped one of its scabby hands around John’s neck. Moira gasped out a small cry, which delighted the beast into snickering. Then it turned John’s head to look him in the eyes. The creature smiled, showing every inch of its teeth, and brought one of its grisly hands up to its mouth. It licked its long black claws and slowly drew them back as if aiming at John’s eyes. Moira closed her eyes and turned away. She was bawling hysterically and kicking her feet, which redoubled the creature’s joy. John felt the creature’s grip tighten as it prepared to take his life. Down came the claws of the creature, and John closed his eyes.
At that moment there was a loud snap. John felt the creature’s hand loosen on his throat and opened his eyes. Its killing claws hovered, just inches in front of his face. The creature clenched his teeth and tried to bring them farther. They trembled but came no closer. It growled and hissed at John.
“NO!” growled a deep voice from the doorway as the monster’s head jerked back from John.
John now saw a chain, around the creature’s neck, pulling it back, and a whip around its wrist. Grudgingly the creature released John’s neck and pulled away from him.
John collapsed to the floor. Moira was still hysterical, and so he crawled over to her. He touched her shoulder, and she jumped away, then she cried in relief when she saw her husband alive. He took her in his arms and held her tight.
A dark figure filled the doorway and beat the ugly thing on the end of the chain leash. He then gave the beast a swift kick, which sent it sniveling to the corner by the stove. It spotted the broken eggs in the garbage bin and stuck its face into the gooey mess.
The figure ducked under the doorframe and crossed to the corner where John and Moira were cowering. As he drew closer, John could see that it was a man of enormous dimension. His features appeared chiseled and his entire body elephantine.
With one of his bloated hands, the colossus grabbed John and slammed him down on the large butcher-block table in the center of the kitchen. Quickly, while John was still stunned, the giant took two large carving knives and pinned his shirt to the table, burying the blades up to the handles in one swift move. Then he bent over John and breathed on his face.
“Where is he?” the giant demanded.
John didn’t reply. He couldn’t. His mind was a roaring, churning sea.
“Where is he?” the giant repeated.
“Where is who?” spouted John.
With one huge fat finger, the titan pressed on John’s chest. John felt as if someone were standing on him. He let out a cough as the pressure continued. Suddenly there was a snap, and John felt one of his ribs break.
“Now you tell me. Where little baby?”
Quickly the pain brought John back to his senses. He knew now what the giant was asking. He also knew that he couldn’t tell him. These were the enemies the lady had warned him about. How had he allowed himself to become involved in all this? Why did the lady tell him anything? He grew angry with the mysterious lady and her companion. His family’s lives were at stake here, and it was the strangers’ fault . . .
“Where baby?” repeated his torturer.
“I don’t know . . .”
“You lie!” With that, the huge mountain of a man proceeded to break another of John’s ribs—then another.
Moira got up and started towards the giant. She wanted desperately to stop him from hurting her beloved husband any further, but then the ugly beast in the corner growled at her, and she slid back down into the corner.
John’s mind was racing. Why should he protect the strangers? After all, they had gotten him into this mess and then left him defenseless. What had happened to his “anti-intrusion policy”? Now the pain was starting to have the reverse effect. His mind was becoming cloudy as the pain in his chest grew.
“I . . . I . . .” John started.
Without warning, all of the nonsense in John’s head went away. All he could see was the infant, so tiny and innocent, so like his son. The words of his solemn oath to the child rang in his ears.
“You what?” said the huge man, grinning.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Snap went another rib.
“Stop!” said a new voice from the doorway. “Don’t want to kill him . . . yet.”
John turned his face to the door. There stood a thin young man dressed all in black. He wore an odd tall hat and carried a gnarled, crooked cane.
“You not boss!” said the giant to the man.
“Yes,” answered the ravenlike man, coming to the table, “but I know how to make the man talk, remember? You will only succeed in killing him.” As he spoke, his decidedly foreign accent became obvious.
The giant growled at the smaller man and then took his finger off John’s chest. He backed away from the table and let the thin man in, next to John.
“You may leave now,” said the thin man impatiently, “and take that . . . thing with you!”
Dragging his feet, the giant took the monstrous beast and left.
With the monster gone, Rascal growled at the thin man from the pantry. The man approached cautiously then swiftly kicked the door of the pantry closed and latched it, leaving Rascal to claw and bark at him from within.
Another man wearing brown leather armor and a long sword appeared in the door and nodded to the man in black. “Sygeon,” he said.
The thin man tossed his head towards the opposite door and said, “Banarel, search the inn.”
“No!” said John.
The thin man stared at John as the man he called Banarel drew his sword and charged into the commons room. “You are in no position to make demands of my mercenaries,” he said.
The man turned and paced the floor. He stopped beside John and breathed a heavy sigh. “You know, it’s amazing. Most men would have already talked. Why haven’t you . . . Eh? Well, let’s start at the beginning. What’s
your name?”
John did not reply.
“I said, what’s your name?” The man then poked John in the chest with his cane.
“John!” Moira cried.
“John?” asked the man. “John? Is that your name?”
“Yes.”
“Good! You see now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? . . . Was it?”
“No!”
“Good! Now where is the baby, John? Where’s the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. How many times must I say it?”
“Until I am satisfied, John . . . until I am satisfied. Now, where is the little baby, John?”
“I don’t . . .”
Suddenly the shrill cry of an infant pierced the air.
“Not my baby!” screamed Moira jumping to her feet.
The man’s head snapped around as Moira ran for the door, and he cut her down with a vicious stroke of his cane. “You have a baby?” he asked pointing his cane at her.
Moira lay on the floor, her cheek split open from the brutal blow. Her entire body was shaking. She could hardly bring herself to blink but somehow managed to nod.
The man’s eyes bore down on her, and then he cocked his head to listen to the baby’s cry. Finally he said, “I have no interest in your brat.” He turned on John and started to beat him, punctuating his words with blows. “I want . . . the baby . . . that came here . . . last . . . night!”
“Tell him, John!” bawled Moira. “If ya know, please tell him!”
“Yes, John. Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“I grow weary of this game, John. But perhaps your wife would make for better sport or . . . maybe your child . . .”
“No!”
“Then tell me, John.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t remember, or you can’t tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I see,” said the man finally and then began to pace the room again.
The mercenary, who had been searching the inn, returned to the kitchen. Though winded, he waited quietly with his black bulging eyes trained on John’s interrogator.
“Find anything?” asked the thin man.
“Couple merchants and a baby, but it’s not the right baby.”
“Yes, I know,” said the thin man. “And the merchants . . . ?”
“Sellin’ ice in Hades.”
“Good man, Banarel. Go outside with the others.”
The mercenary nodded and exited the kitchen. The thin man continued to pace. Suddenly he stopped and stared at the floor curiously. “Hello, what have we here?” He stooped down and picked something out of a crack in the floor. He inspected it and then walked over to Moira.
“Excuse me, madam, but are you in the habit of leaving bezants on the floor of your kitchen.” He held out a gold solidus in front of Moira’s face.
Moira could see that it was one of the coins that the two strangers had given them. “No, sir,” she answered.
“Where did this come from?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
The man took his cane and put the end on John’s chest. Then he looked at Moira and asked, “Where?”
“Two gentlemen, strangers they were. Came through here and left.”
“And these two . . . gentlemen,” he said, “did they have many bezants?”
Moira looked at John on the table, and the man pushed on his cane. John winced from the pain but looked at Moira and shook his head.
“Well?” asked the man.
“Well . . . I don’t know, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me, woman! Were they carrying many of these coins?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good! It must be them. When did they leave?”
“Don’t tell him anything!” cried John.
The man struck John sharply with his cane then poked him for good measure. “That will be enough, John. You’ve got to learn to speak in turn.” Then he turned back to Moira. “Now . . . when did they go?”
“This morning, early,” answered Moira.
“And which way were they going?”
“I don’t know.”
The man struck John hard.
“I don’t know!” Moira repeated. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!” She went to her knees weeping. “Please, sir . . . don’t beat him any more! Please!”
The door was darkened again by the large form of the giant.
“Beast find trail. Sygeon come now.”
“Yes. I don’t think we need to take up any more of your time. Good-bye, John. Good-bye, good madam.”
With that the thin man stepped over the broken door and walked outside. Immediately John and Moira could hear him yelling to his companions in a foreign tongue and then the sounds of horses riding away.
Moira ran to John and helped him from the table. She had to take off his shirt to get him free.
Suddenly the smell of smoke filled her nose. Moira looked to her stove, then quickly to the door. The smoke came from outside. Moira ran out the door. As she cleared the building, she saw the roof of the inn ablaze with several small fires. The flames spread quickly in the thatch roof, and the black smoke became thick.
“John!” she cried and sprinted back into the inn. Quickly she dragged John outside then ran back in the kitchen door.
“Moira!” John shouted. “Don’t go in there!”
“I’ve got to get the baby!” she shouted back.
“Wait!” John yelled, but it was too late. Moira had already disappeared through the thickening smoke. John tried to get up and follow her but stumbled forward and fell painfully to the ground. His strength waning, he crawled towards the door—facedown in the dirt. Suddenly he heard a galloping horse to his right and glanced up just in time to see a heavy staff coming at his head. There was a loud crack. The kitchen roof collapsed, and so did John.
Chapter III
Phoenix
John’s eyes fluttered open. Reluctantly his body began to move. And then . . .
“Moira! William!” he gasped. He jolted up to a sitting position. The intense pain in his chest and head forced him to fall back. He looked about frantically. At first he didn’t recognize his surroundings but soon realized that he was in the tack room behind the inn’s stable. He was lying on the small cot where the stable boy sometimes slept, under an old blanket. His head throbbed as he looked around. His newest friend, the large companion to the lady, slept sitting against the wall. He was dirty and spattered with dried blood. His sword lay bloodied beside him, and cradled to his chest, sound asleep, was the troublesome infant.
Just then, there came a muffled thud from outside. The warrior’s eyes popped open, and he shot a glance in John’s direction, then to the door. He got to one knee with great difficulty, and gently he handed the baby to John. Then he raised a bloodied finger to his lips to hush anything John might have wanted to say. Pain molded the contours of the man’s face, but there was something more, like the anger in the teeth of a hungry wolf. The instant John made eye contact, a chill went through him, and he knew that the nightmare was not over.
The man crept towards the door—his bloodstained sword poised high. Silently he waited, like a viper, for his prey to enter. John watched him, fearful of what lay beyond the door. The blood was pounding in his head, and he forced himself to take a breath. The baby stirred in his arms and began to fuss. John pulled the babe close to him and stuck the tip of his littlest finger into the babe’s mouth.
The seconds beat on like hours. The large man’s sword started to quiver. His arms shook with exhaustion and anticipation.
Crash! The wall next to John burst into splinters, and a horse came through it. As it cleared the wall, John could see that the horse and its rider were wrapped in elegant armor of the blackest steel. John’s companion whirled around to face the intruder and was knocked to the grou
nd by the horse’s strutting forelegs. The horse and rider nearly filled the small shack, leaving little room for maneuverability. Instantly the rider urged the steed to trample the downed warrior. The horse put one of its heavy hooves on the man’s chest and drove him back to the ground. With great skill, the rider held the mount steady and prepared to spear their victim with a cruelly barbed lance. The lancer rose up and aimed at the man pinned under the beast’s hoof.
Suddenly the prone man struck up with his sword. The blade pierced the soft underside of the horse. It whinnied and reared up on its rear legs. The dark rider’s head struck a ceiling beam with a thud. Immediately the rider went limp and dropped with a crash to the ground.
Blood poured from the horse’s belly wound. Its legs buckled, and it went to its knees before rolling on to its side. There was a moment of silence, then the horse let out a labored breath.
With a rattle, the dismounted rider sat up and pulled off the dark helmet, revealing a beautiful woman with short light hair and pointed ears. She shook her head as if dizzy then scanned around her. Her large almond-shaped eyes were violet in color and glowed slightly in the dim light. They narrowed as they came across the baby in John’s arms. Slowly she slithered towards the baby, while silently slipping a dagger from its sheath. Her eyes never wandered from the baby, and her movements were like liquid moonbeams. John was horrified and hypnotized by the approaching visage.
The baby let out a cry. Suddenly John came to his senses and reached up to stop the deadly blow. He struggled with the woman, using every ounce of his strength to push her back. His ribs shrieked with pain, but he held on to her wrists. John rolled the crying baby onto the cot and tumbled to the ground with the woman. John’s friend managed to grab her and held down her dagger arm. The woman kneed John’s ribs and rolled over on top of the other man. She grabbed his throat and tried to bring her dagger down to him. The blade came closer and closer to his face as she put her weight behind it. She released his throat momentarily and punched him in the chest, where her horse had trampled him. The large man winced at the pain but continued to hold her at bay. She redoubled her attack on his chest, and his strength began to falter. She brought her blade a mere hair’s breadth from his eye, then suddenly she straightened as if she had given up. With a dreadful scream, she came down with the black dagger. The man’s strength could not hold her back any longer, and the deadly blade found its mark in his chest. The large man let out a groan as he expired.
