Kal smiled. Jo-Dal was no fool, nor was the king.
Tallun frowned and looked back at the glowering Bonn behind him. Bonn shrugged. Evidently his second-in-Command had no ideas to offer.
“You must understand our situation,” Tallun shouted. “We are in a strange land and have no experience with your culture. Your Royal Engineer is the only guarantee we have of our safety.”
King Tyner spoke to Jo-Dal in a tone too low to hear from Kal’s position. Kal was prepared for the position that he knew the king would be forced to take.
Jo-Dal nodded when Tyner finished. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was a look of regret on his face. “It would seem that your safety is sufficiently protected by the dozens of war ships that litter our harbor without our permission. Let us end this farce. We are all aware that you are an invading force. You will surrender every member of our crew and send all but two of your vessels out to sea. They can remain near enough to respond to signals. Since you now know that we have levels of intelligence far greater than you’d hoped, we will allow a small number of diplomats inside our walls if you are truly disposed to establishing a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship between our cities. Those are the only concessions that we will offer.”
Tallun walked back and conferred with Bonn and several of the other captains that were in their party. Jo-Dal and Tyner waited patiently above them on the wall. After more than a few moments the pirates seemed to come to an agreement and Tallun carefully approached shouting distance again. His smile had returned.
“As you said, Lord Jo-Dal, let us both end this farce. We have a force of thousands of armed fighters. We have many summers of experience in successfully attacking and conquering coastal cities such as yours. You could avoid the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of your citizens by recognizing the weakness of your position. We would ask only a fair tribute from your kingdom, recurring every summer with small increases each time. We also require reasonable access to your women for the time we are here and some to accompany us when we return to our home. In return your city stays unbroken, your people alive and healthy.”
“And our citizens from the Wind of Aspell?” Jo-dal asked.
Tallun shrugged. “Unfortunately some of them are no longer…healthy. The others have been seized on open sea by ships of the People of Kylee. By me, specifically. As such, our laws make them my property. They will not be returned. In fact, if we are forced to be unpleasant in our attempts to accomplish our task you may find parts of your crew scattered here and there below your walls in the morning. I will give you until the sun touches the sea to consider our terms.”
Tyner reached his hand out and passed a small object to Jo-Dal. The Warrior looked at it in his hand and smiled. He turned to the pirate delegation below and tossed the object. It hit on the brick road surface and bounced with a musical “chiiiing”. When it landed again, it rolled around and around in diminishing circles until it settled on its side. It was a copper coin, the smallest denomination available in the kingdom of Aspell.
“My King Tyner advises that this is the upper limit of any tribute you will receive from Aspell. As to our citizens whom you hold, they were aware of their situations when they volunteered to undertake their mission of peaceful discovery. If you wish to put the full extent of your cowardice on display then they will suffer their fate with courage and dignity. No son of Aspell would trade his safety for the lives of other citizens, especially our wives and daughters.
“Know this, Outlaw! These gates will never open to such as you. If you attack our walls we will slaughter you by the hundreds. If ever you would be successful in breaching them, within you will find only poisoned food stores and salted wells. Any gold or silver you seek will be melted and fed through sieves. The small particles that result will be crushed into powder and fed to our coastal winds. The women whom you expect to find docile and frightened, will stand shield to shield with the best of you in fair combat to the death. In the unlikely event that you are successful, your efforts will win you nothing but an empty, burned out shell of a castle and a stronghold full of ghosts.
“You wish to test the mettle of the people of Aspell? By all means, send forth your legions of future corpses.”
Below him Kal shouted and cheered until he was struck by a spear shaft alongside his ribs. When he fell to the ground he continued to shout, “Aspell, Aspell, Aspell…,” until a blunt leather-covered club knocked him unconscious.
***
Grey Ones, more commonly known as Greys, are sub-human monsters who hunt every living creature, including humans, for food. They had attacked Olvion in the hundreds of thousands just six months prior to Taggart being returned to Earth. It was that invasion that the people of the four known kingdoms now referred to as the Great War. The brutes were squat of build and more heavily limbed than the slender human population. They had protruding eyebrow ridges from which a thatch of coarse black hair grew, running up over their head and down to the small of their back. Their name was derived from the dark grey color of their flesh. They were soulless, savage and violent.
Toria immediately stepped back until she was standing slightly behind Taggart giving him room to swing the sword without fear of hitting her. He waited for half of a heartbeat to let the attacking mob get close enough so that they would be too close to avoid his thrown spear. It shot forward, powered by muscles that had been formed for thirty years in the denser gravity of Earth. The deadly missile sank deeply into the chest of the closest beast. He fell and was hopped over by his unconcerned companions.
The remaining four all targeted Taggart since he was the most obvious danger, and the girl could always be taken after he was dealt with. Fortunately, they were not armed with javelin or spear. Two wielded the crude metal swords that they produced in their mountain strongholds, one bore a two-headed battle axe, and the fourth had only a wooden club. Taggart thought these five, now four, were most likely one of the many groups that had fled the slaughter on the battlefield and were now attacking targets of opportunity for food.
They did not surround Taggart. Such a tactic would have been more difficult for him to guard against. Instead they ran straight at him which served to give only two of them the opportunity to strike first since the other two were unable to get close enough. Taggart knew better than to stand still and let them time their attack. When they were three steps away, he roared and dashed forward. He caught the descending sword hand of one grey ogre at the wrist and held it while he hacked at the other. The blade of his donated sword may have been heavy and oddly-shaped, but it parted bone and flesh adequately. Taggart’s strike caught the second swordsman directly on the collarbone and cleaved him all the way down to the navel. He hopped to the side, pivoting his body, and used his grip on the other’s wrist to throw him to the ground.
The two Greys still standing wielded the club and the axe, and they were too close now. Taggart knew he would not be able to avoid both of their attacks so he went for the one with the axe. The Grey who was armed with the wooden club was able to land a strong blow to Taggart’s ribcage, and the impact drove the air from his lungs. The axe man swung too quickly, and missed his only chance to do major damage. Taggart kicked out and caught him in the solar plexus. Now it was the Grey’s turn to lose his breath, and Taggart followed up with a killing chop to the back of his head.
The club swung at Taggart again. He was too close to avoid it, so he decided to just take it on the meaty part of his shoulder. It hurt, but it opened up his opponent for a savage upward stab, under the ribcage and into the heart. The grey brute looked up at him with an expression of shock and surprise. Then he died.
Taggart spun quickly around searching for the Grey that he had earlier thrown from his feet. Eight feet away that creature was on both knees on the leaf-covered forest floor. His head was hung at an unnatural angle, and arterial blood sprayed out from his carotid onto the ground. There were deep gashes to his arm and torso. The dying grey beast was l
ooking at Toria with a shocked and furious expression. Then the light went out of his eyes, and he fell over backwards.
Standing before him Toria had her knees slightly bent and her body in a fighting stance. Her knives were dripping blood onto the forest floor.
Afterward, Taggart dragged the bodies off of the path and into the trees. It was the best he could do under the circumstances. The predators of the field would do their work. Toria was over by the stream. She was washing the blood from her hands and arms. She repeated this several times.
When Taggart was done with his grisly task, he joined her at the brook. He had blood splashed on his face, hands, arms, and down the front of his shirt. He stripped off the garment and dipped it into the water several times. He caught Toria watching the red tinted water as it flowed downstream and out of their sight. Taggart recovered his pack and took out the second sleeveless tunic that Mattus’ wife had tailored for his large frame. He pulled on the garment and fastened his belt around it.
Toria was still sitting silently. Her chin quivered slightly, but her hands were still.
“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked.
Her gaze went over to the area where he had dragged the bodies then she looked back at him. “No, I don’t want to talk about it, but I feel like I should. Could we do it after we are away from here?”
Taggart was watching her eyes and her extremities. Great stress affected people in many ways, but he had found it to be most obvious in one’s limbs or eyes. If the legs and arms were shivering or the eyes were unfocused, his combat experience had taught him that shock was setting in. So far she was not displaying any such symptoms.
Taggart had read the opinions of psychologists and psychiatrists regarding the effects of battle stress. The thing that struck him was that they only spoke in theories. Sure, they had interviewed and treated combat soldiers for source material, but he always kept in mind that there was killing, and then there was killing.
Placing your rifle’s sights on the chest of a human being that was standing two hundred and fifty feet away and squeezing the trigger was a difficult thing to do. If the soldier was using a scope that was powerful enough to allow him to see his enemy’s face, the effect was less pleasant still. Taggart, who had spent six months engaged in the worst type of combat, now knew the difference between those scenarios and hacking off an opponent’s arm, or slicing open his abdomen in the midst of a true fight to the death. He knew that a wound to another’s viscera emitted a putrid stink that no warrior ever forgot. He knew the feeling of watching an opponent’s eyes glaze over as one stood there covered in his blood.
These were not easy things for a grown man to handle. Now, as he and this girl who was barely on the edge of adulthood walked away from the scene of a horrific occurrence, he was very concerned. He allowed her to take all of the time she needed to process what had happened. Finally after a mile or so she began speaking while looking straight ahead.
“Father has trained me for as long as I can remember. Every morning before chores and every evening after our meal, he would insist on my brothers and me practicing with our weapons. I was always jealous that they used swords and spears while Father insisted that I perfect the art of Tooth and Claw. Of course, when Father was away, I added sword practice to my exercises.” She turned her head to look up at her companion. “Did Father tell you that I could best both of my brothers with our wooden practice swords?”
Taggart shook his head. “No, but I would be lying if I said I was surprised.” He had expected that comment to bring a smile to her face. It didn’t. There was a twitch to her mouth, though.
“I found out when I was little that raw strength was not the only way to get things done. Jost is much larger and stronger than me, but if I use speed and the shifting of my body weight, I can strike every bit as hard as he can. In my entire life I have never met anyone who could even come close to being as fast as I am. Twice I have even broken his wooden sword in practice.” This time she did smile. It was brief, and small, but it was a smile nonetheless. Taggart took it as a good sign. “Anyway, my point is, all of my life I have felt that, somehow, I have been preparing myself for something. I don’t know what it is, but I can never escape the feeling that it will come.” She stretched her arms back over her head as she walked. Taggart thought he noticed a loosening of her movements. Yes, she was definitely calming down. Under the circumstances he was impressed.
“You may not believe me but, when those monsters attacked us, I wasn’t afraid. It felt like I was finally doing what I was always intended for. When you threw that one Grey to the dirt he jumped back up and was about to stab you from behind.”
Taggart felt an icicle form in his guts. He had not even been aware of the danger that the other Grey had posed.
“I saw what was happening, and knew I had to do something. I sank my claw into his sword arm and used the tooth to slice his exposed side from shoulder to waist. When he turned and attacked me he was actually roaring in anger. He came right at me with his sword.” She took a moment, probably replaying the incident in her mind. She looked up at him again. “Tag, I wasn’t afraid. I kept attacking the shoulder of his sword arm with the claw a few times until he had a hard time keeping it raised. Then I feinted with the claw and opened his throat with the tooth.
“He fell down and glared at me. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He just seemed furious that I had been able to do it to him. Me, a girl…well, a woman. Why wasn’t I afraid Tag?”
The big man’s brows bunched as he pondered her question. He never considered himself a man of answers, but he had seen and done things that most people would never encounter. He was a man of two worlds after all.
“Toria, first of all I thank you for today. If not for your actions I would be dead or severely wounded. As to your question, I think it can be summed up in one word; fearlessness. I have seen brave people, and I have seen cowardly people. There are plenty of both. Then there are just a few of the type that, for want of a better word, I call fearless. They are very rare. The new King Ruguer is such a person. I have seen him perform acts of courage that you would have to observe to believe. His bride, Queen Meena, is another. So is my woman, Dwan. I would not be surprised if you turn out to be another such person, Toria. You certainly have more than your share of courage.
“Bear in mind that courage, no matter how strong, is useless without judgement and wisdom. A bold warrior who throws his or her life away on a foolish act of recklessness is of no help to those who need that bravery. You are a young person, and you lack what the people in my old world called life experience. Observe those whom you respect, people like your father, your mother and others you meet. Study them, their victories and their failures. Learn how to avoid the mistakes they make and how to replicate their successes. You already have a natural intelligence. Just keep adding experience to it as you grow.”
The girl walked along silently for a while, considering his words. Taggart noticed that the temperature was climbing. He was already looking for another stream.
Toria got his attention again by placing an arm on his shoulder. “And what about my feeling that I have been preparing for something big? Bigger than a life as a farmer’s wife? I know we are only supposed to be on this journey together for three days, but, could this be it? Is something else ahead for us or does it all cook down to my just being prepared to survive our attack today?”
She raised good points. “The only honest answer to that is ‘I don’t know’.”
They walked on until they reached the planned stopping point for the night. It wasn’t yet dusk, but they were both ready to stop. They took a short detour off of the path they’d been following and came to a large ranch. Taggart had heard of it. It was one of the dozens of facilities where the charon, the Olvioni term for horse, are raised and trained for the warrior cavalry. The horses/charon that Taggart found in his adopted world were almost exact copies of their Earth cousins, the only noticeable difference being that thes
e local animals were thinner boned owing to the reduced gravity. The cavalry units of the four human kingdoms had been the ultimate weapon in the Great War against the Grey Ones. Their value could not be overstated.
Greys had never been successful at capturing, training and using the animals for military purposes or any other purpose for that matter. Every charon that they captured refused to eat or take water and soon died. It was a mystery that almost led one to believe in a supernatural manipulation of this world.
Being cognizant of the importance of this advantage, the kingdoms financed and ran several facilities for the purposes of ensuring an adequate and unending supply of the animals. The ranch that they were now approaching had been one of the largest before the war. When the Greys carried out their surprise attacks on the outlying farms and villages in the run-up to the war, the people who manned this ranch had been butchered. Now that the invaders had been defeated, the facility had been reopened. Like Chadd’s farm, it was one of the places at which Mattus’ family had stayed while on their journey to the farm they now occupied.
Toria started getting excited as soon as she could see the ranch appear at the top of a rise. She babbled excitedly to Taggart for a few minutes before losing her patience and taking off for the facility at a run. After walking for two days straight Taggart was content to finish the distance at a comfortable stroll.
In a scene reminiscent of the previous day’s happenings, Taggart saw Toria being surrounded by other young people and a few adults. Two armed warriors wearing the colors of Olvion approached him. They had already allowed access to Toria so he was not surprised that they were smiling. They walked up to him, and each offered the warrior’s greeting of a mutual gripping of wrists.
“I know my actions must seem unprofessional to you, Good Warrior,” said one, “But there can be no doubt as to who you are. I saw you several times in Olvion during the Great War.”
There was a familiarity to the man that was not immediately clear to Taggart. He thanked him and followed as they both led him up to the ranch. They spoke as they walked. The first man he had spoken to was named Geraar. He was a tall (for an Olvioni) fireplug of a lad who had an easy smile and an athletic appearance. There was a thin scar on his left cheek that ran down to his neck. It appeared that he had narrowly avoided having his jugular sliced in battle. He was handsome in a rough manner and wore his hair a bit short even for a warrior. Taggart tried his best to place him in his memory but was not successful. He knew he would not be able to rest until he figured it out.
The Coastal Kingdoms of Olvion: Book Two of The Chronicles of Olvion Page 9
