by James Wisher
When he got within a few feet of the closest monster he lunged and ran it through. His sword burst out of its chest and it collapsed.
The second boarman turned toward him. That was all the advantage the woman needed. She jumped on its back and stabbed it in the eye. Her blade passed through into its brain, killing it.
She leapt off the falling boarman and turned to face him, knife raised. Col flicked the blood off his sword and sheathed it. “Hello.” He smiled and tried to look reassuring. “What’s a pretty woman like you doing in a place like this?”
She laughed and Col relaxed. “I was about to ask you the same thing.” She sheathed her knife and held out a hand. “I’m Mariel.”
“Col.” He shook her hand. She had a warrior’s grip. Now that he didn’t have to focus on the boarmen or her knife he realized his line hadn’t been just a line. She was a pretty woman, though not very clean at the moment, with short blond hair that looked hacked off by the same knife she fought with, bright blue eyes, and a slim, fit build. Better yet, she knew how to fight. “I’m scouting the area, trying to figure out what the beastmen are doing with the people they take prisoner.”
“Aren’t you a little young to be scouting on your own?”
Col sighed. She couldn’t be more than five years older than him. He never considered how young he looked. He drew the amulet out from under his tunic. “I’m one of the Knights of Corinthia, the last, in point of fact. What about you?”
She stepped closer to examine the amulet. “I was with the Rel city guard. The monsters captured me and sent me west in one of their slave groups. I slipped my bindings and escaped. I’ve been running and hiding ever since and I can’t tell you how good it is to see a face that doesn’t have a muzzle and fangs. Thanks for saving me.”
Col grinned. “You seemed to be doing okay. Do you know where they’re taking everybody?”
She shook her head. “I escaped a day west of here. I found nothing resembling an end point. Do you have food? I’ve had nothing but berries and roots for weeks.”
Col shrugged out of his pack and opened the flap. He handed her three strips of dried fish; he couldn’t spare any more. She gnawed on them with an enthusiasm that would have made a starving wolf proud. When she finished he said, “If you head back down the trail you’ll find where the people I freed turned north. You should catch them in a day or two.”
“Thanks, but if you don’t mind the company I’ll stick with you.”
“It’ll be dangerous.”
“Good. I owe those ugly monsters some payback.”
Col shrugged. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The two of them headed out, Col in the lead. Since he had no better ideas he continued to follow the trail. Mariel kept up without complaint until he called it a day at sunset. Despite making good time it didn’t appear that they’d gotten any nearer to civilization or what passed for it in beastman territory.
He fished out more of his dried meat to share. If this mission ended up taking as long as he planned they’d run out of food before they got back to Corinthia.
“So where were you serving?” Mariel asked when she’d finished her meat.
“When the beastmen attacked? I was finishing up my training in the capital.”
She winced. “I heard it was a massacre.”
“You heard right, only five people I know of got out alive. What about you? Word is the battle of Rel was messy too.”
“I didn’t see much of it. The monsters captured me on the second day. I figured they’d kill me outright, that’s what the commanders said beastmen did, but they didn’t. They stuck me in a pen with a bunch of others. Sometimes they didn’t feed us for days. After a while they moved us west to a central holding area.”
“Five pens with a saberfang in charge?”
She shook her head. “Eight pens though a saberfang was in charge. They kept me prisoner there for over a week while they brought in more people. When they couldn’t stuff another person in those pens they gathered us up—there must have been close to a thousand of us—and marched us off toward the mountains. What the hell are they doing with all these people?”
Col lay back and closed his eyes. “That’s what I, now we, are going to find out. Get some sleep, we’ve got plenty more walking tomorrow.”
* * *
“This looks like where they were headed.” Col crouched down and examined the profusion of tracks littering a large clearing. He and Mariel had spent two days hiking before they finally reached the clearing. Two other trails met up with the one they’d followed. On the western side of the clearing five smaller trails fanned out deeper into the mountains.
She stood, arms crossed, looking at the exit trails. “Where do you think they go?”
Col shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I guess we pick one and follow where it goes.”
“That’s your plan, pick one and see where it goes?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You got a better plan?”
“No.” She sighed. “Which one?”
“The middle one.”
“Why that one?”
“Why not?”
She threw her hands up over her head. “Fine, let’s go. We’ve still got a few hours of light left.”
“What’s wrong? You seem to have lost your enthusiasm for this adventure. Two days ago you were eager to follow me, now you’re act like it’s a chore.”
“Sorry, I figured we’d be killing beastmen not trudging through the forest.”
“This is a scouting mission. The idea is to sneak around and see what’s happening. If we do it right no one will know we were here.”
“You rescued several hundred slaves then killed more beastmen to save me. I wouldn’t call that sneaky.”
Col shrugged. “This is my first scouting mission. I’m obviously not going to get it perfect the first time.”
She stared at him then laughed. “You’re crazy.”
Col smiled, remembering when Rain had said something similar to him. “All the women in my life seem to think that. The truth is I’m making this up as I go and hoping I don’t get killed.”
Col walked down the middle trail then glanced back over his shoulder. “You coming?”
She caught up with him and they continued down the trail. Many feet had worn the path smooth, but unlike the main trail only two people could walk abreast down this one without getting tangled in the branches lining it. It looked like a far smaller number of people came this way. The big clearing was probably where they divided the people up into smaller groups for distribution. If you considered humans just another meat animal that made sense. He’d seen ranchers do something similar with their cattle, gathering them together before driving them to the slaughterhouse.
Col shuddered. Best not to dwell on that.
“How many people do you think the beastmen have taken?” Mariel whispered.
Col shook his head. He didn’t like to think about it. “There were three trails leading to that gathering place. That means three holding areas in the kingdom. Let’s say all together they hold around two thousand. If they’ve made four or five trips west, maybe ten thousand.”
She stopped and stared at his back. “Ten thousand people?”
“About that.” Col stopped, turning to face her. “Figure ten times that many killed.”
Her legs wobbled and he rushed back in time to catch her before she fell. “I never thought about it like that. I’ve just been trying to survive.”
A maple had blown over a little ways off the trail and Col guided her over. She sat and bent over with her head between her knees. Col sat beside her and rubbed her back. “Please don’t throw up. Hearing someone get sick makes me nauseous.”
She managed a weak smile. Mariel must have thought he was kidding, Col wished he was. He’d been covered in blood and guts, watched people around him die, but somehow just listening to someone gag got to him.
“I’m okay now.”
* * *
They continued on for another day and a half before they came to the wolfman village. It consisted of little more than a collection of crude huts built on the side of a hill. Col counted thirty. In the late afternoon light figures moved around, some big and others small, and an occasional human worked at this or that job, usually digging or hauling something.
The two of them kept well back into the woods. Col crouched under a big pine tree and tried to study the small figures. He’d never seen beastman kids before. A small group ran around while bigger ones, their mothers he assumed, stood nearby keeping an eye on them. If not for the slaves it could have been a backwater village anywhere in Corinthia. Perhaps only the males were savage.
“Did you know they lived like this?” Mariel asked.
“No clue. All I know about beastmen revolves around the best ways to kill them and avoid getting killed by them. I’d never given even a passing thought to their home life. If all the males are away fighting that would explain why they need the people, they provide both labor and food freeing the females to care for the little ones.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing for now. We’ll study their movements and try to figure out where they keep our people. Tonight, after midnight, I’ll sneak in for a closer look then we can decide our next step.”
She didn’t argue so they settled in to watch the village. The activities soon bored him and his gaze wandered farther up the hill. A glint caught his eye. When he focused on it he recognized the aura of a lie, similar to the illusion surrounding Tahlia. He was too far away to make out any details, but someone had hidden something up there.
“Do you see anything further up the hill?” Col pointed toward the glow.
Mariel shook her head. “Just rocks, dirt, and scrub. Why, do you?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure what. I need to check it out before we investigate the village. When it gets dark I’ll swing out wide and approach it from the far side.”
Col must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes night had fallen. Mariel smiled at him. “I guess you needed a nap.”
He yawned and sat up. “Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing interesting.”
Col got to his feet. “Stay here. I’ll check out whatever’s on that hill.”
“Should I come with you?”
“No, two are more likely to get spotted than one. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
Col slipped away before she could object. The night was clear and the stars bright so he had little trouble finding his way to the far side of the village. He searched around, hoping for an easy way up to whatever he spotted. A narrow, rough path started about twenty feet from where he left the woods. He frowned. A path indicated someone came this way at least once in a while.
With no better options he started up the trail. It grew steeper the further he climbed until he had to find handholds among the stubby evergreens growing near the path. He looked up and spotted the weird glow about fifty feet above him. He let out a breath and kept climbing. Before he reached the glow he found a flat area, like a landing for people to rest after the climb.
When he’d caught his breath Col studied the glow up close. It outlined a semicircle in the rock face of the hill. He reached out to touch it and his hand went through the stone. He stumbled and staggered through the illusion. Col recovered before he fell and looked around. The illusion hid a cave, a big one, lit by a red glow.
In the center of the room sat the source of the light: a box resting on top of a stone pillar. Red runes twisted and writhed on its surface. Everything about it screamed, touch me and die. Col wasn’t stupid enough to touch it, but he was stupid enough that he had no idea what he was looking at. He took a few steps deeper into the cave and found the body of a man, about thirty, lying on a stone slab.
There weren’t any wounds and the body looked too fresh to have been there long. It might have been one of the prisoners. That begged the question of why the beastmen would put a body in a hidden cave and how they killed him.
Col shook his head. This was well beyond his understanding. He pulled the little orb out of his pocket. Time to get some professional advice.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“It’s a soul box.” Tahlia must have been in her casting chamber because she’d answered Col’s message minutes after he sent it. “You need to leave at once and return to Celestia. This may be the discovery that lets us win the war. No one can know you were there. Leave the cave as you found it, avoid the village, and come back as fast as you can.”
Col stared at the orb. That was her whole message. She wanted him to abandon the slaves and return to base. What the hell was a soul box and what made it so important that she’d tell him to abandon innocent people to their fate? Orders or not he couldn’t leave those people to serve and eventually feed a bunch of beastmen. He liked and respected Tahlia as much as anyone he’d ever met, but he couldn’t obey her in this and live with himself.
Col left the cave and when he looked back the illusion appeared just as he’d found it. Going back down proved trickier than going up, but he slipped and slid his way to the bottom. He swung around the village on about the same line as he’d taken on his approach. He turned toward the pine tree where he’d left Mariel.
“Mariel?” No sign of the former guard or of a struggle. It didn’t look like she’d gotten captured. So where was she?
The moon had cleared the mountains while he made his way back and in the better light Col spotted a few scuff marks. It looked like she’d gone toward the village on her own. Stupid… ugh! If any of the wolfmen spotted her and raised the alarm they’d be screwed. He couldn’t fight off a whole village, even if it was only females and kids. Col hurried after Mariel, hoping to catch her before she got into trouble.
Col reached the edge of the village and found the body of a wolfman with a gray muzzle, its throat cut, still bleeding on the ground. It appeared he’d come the right way. He stepped over the body and headed deeper into the village. They’d built their huts on a massive stone ledge, so everywhere he looked the ground was rock, which meant no tracks to follow. As usual it looked like he’d have to guess.
The start of a howl, quickly cut off, cut through the dark. The sound came from the right hand path. It seemed he wouldn’t have to guess after all. Col jogged down the path and after a minute found Mariel standing over another dead wolfman.
Col hissed to get her attention. Mariel turned toward him, dagger raised. When she recognized him she lowered it. He motioned her over to the shadow of a hut.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. “I told you to wait for me.”
“I don’t take orders from you. I said, I wanted some payback,” she said, just as quietly.
“If you were looking to commit suicide you should have told me. Did you find the prisoners?”
“Not yet.”
“Help me.” Col grabbed one of the dead beastman’s legs and pulled it toward the darkness behind one of the huts. Halfway over she grabbed the other leg and helped him. When he had the body out of sight he dropped it.
“What was the point of that?” she asked.
“You don’t suppose they might have some guards on patrol, do you?”
Mariel blinked as though the idea never occurred to her. “Do you think they might?”
“This is their home and they’re not that stupid, just savage and brutal. We need to be careful or we’ll end up in a stew pot. Come on, let’s find those people and get out of here.”
Col turned toward the center of the village. He figured if the monsters had a place to keep the slaves locked up it would be where the most eyes could watch them. He slipped from one shadow to the next, ears straining for any sign that a beastman had discovered their presence. The click of claws on stone warned him a moment before a pair of gray-furred wolfmen armed with curved swords walked by. Col crouched in the shadow of a hut and threw an arm across Mariel’s chest to keep her fr
om attacking.
When they’d gone she whispered, “What are you doing? We can take two old wolfmen.”
“Sure we can, in the middle of their village surrounded by sleeping monsters. We make one loud noise and one of those things pokes its nose out to see what happened, and the next thing you know we’re surrounded. If you want to get yourself killed be my guest, but wait until after we free the prisoners.”
“Fine. I guess I owe you that much for saving my life, but I’m questioning the courage of the Knights of Corinthia.”
“And I’m questioning the intelligence of the Rel city guard.”
Mariel flinched as though he’d slapped her. “How dare you?”
“How dare you? What’s the first responsibility of a guard? Come on, I doubt the oath in Rel differs from the one in Finegold.”
“To serve and protect the people.” Her voice trembled and tears ran down her cheeks. “I want to hurt them so bad.”
Col put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, believe me I know, but your duty comes first. We protect the people we can protect, right?”
“Right.” She stepped away from him and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Let’s go do our job.”
Col grinned. Finally, he’d gotten through to her. He led the way as they snuck deeper into the village. At the center they found nothing but a fieldstone well in the middle of a round open space. “Well, shit.”
“Got another guess?” Mariel asked.
Col closed his eyes and ran a hand though his hair. Where could they be? He frowned. The village butted up against the hill. If there were caves that would make a good place to keep slaves. Even beastmen could put bars across a cave opening. “I have a hunch.”
Col swung wide of the village center as he picked his way toward the hill. The smell hit him about a hundred yards out: the stench of unwashed bodies and shit. He suspected they were getting close. Col crouched in the shadow of the last hut in the village. A twenty-yard opening separated the village proper from a series of caves in the hill with bars across them. In the feeble light people stood by the bars, staring out into the night like lost souls. Two beastmen walked back and forth in front of the caves.
