***
Tallun and his eight crewmen arrived at the slave quarters just as Jo-Dal, and his warriors were maneuvering into position to attack the harbor barricades. The street upon which the building was located was eerily quiet and deserted. Sounds of fighting could be heard, but they were several streets away. Tallun felt an icy trickle of sweat run down his backbone. Every moment that they delayed, the chances of recovering his human inventory and successfully escaping to the sea were diminishing. At this point he was not aware of the approach of Fauwler’s fleet.
The men thundered up the board porch and pushed their way inside. They went straight to the stairs that led to the cellar. Tallun produced the key and turned the lock, but the door did not open. He put his shoulder to it and strained. Still, it would not budge. Shouting curses he yelled at his men to break it down. They had no time for the infuriating antics of the captive women.
In the cellar, Toria heard the attempts of the pirates to force the door. She and Tay ran up the stairs and threw themselves against it, trying to overcome their efforts. Dwan signaled her women to split into two groups helping to barricade the two doors.
The stairway landing was narrow and would allow only two of the women at a time to push against the door. The debris that they had piled against it earlier added weight to the project. The women heard the men on the other side cursing and shouting threats about what would happen to them if they did not open the door. Instead the women got behind Tay and Toria and added their body weight to the barrier. The door rattled and shook and even bowed inward, but it held.
Then there was a crash from below. An assault was being made on the other door leading in from the alley. Toria left Tay above and rushed to help the other women hold the lower door. This one was of a larger and heavier construction, but the force being applied to it seemed considerably stronger. The women were rocked back and forth as the door bent inward, straining at the lock and sills. Toria looked up at Tay and shook her head.
Then there was a crashing and Tay and the others at the top of the cellar stairs were thrown backwards and down the stairs. Two women lost their footing and tumbled down several steps. Two pirates finished splintering the door and pushed their way through. Tay leapt forward to attack, but was punched full in the face by one of the men. She was propelled backward and fell unconscious onto the landing. The other women grabbed her limp body and pulled her down to the cellar. More men came through the ruined portal, and then there was a furious shout. Some of the women shuddered when they recognized the voice of Captain Tallun.
“You!” Tallun advanced down the stairs. He was pointing a long gnarled finger at Dwan. “This is your doing. You have been a strain on my tolerance since the day you were taken.”
The captain walked slowly down the stairs as he spoke. The other eight men followed him, waiting for his instructions. They all carried the thick, wooden dowels which they intended to use to inflict painful strikes in the herding of the slaves. They were also fully armed with swords and knives.
“You!” he said again, still pointing at Dwan. “I have protected you from serious harm when all of my men advised me to make of you an example.”
Dwan met his stare evenly with no obvious fear. The pounding on the lower door continued.
“I protected you, and how am I repaid?” Tallun asked. He glared at Dwan, then all of the other women. He did not seem to notice Toria or the unconscious Tay as being new to the group. “Well no more,” he shouted. “You shall finally discover what happens when one exceeds my patience. You will spend the voyage chained to my cot. I will show you the manner in which slaves are supposed to serve. By the time we make port you will have no more pride, no more defiance. You will be a simple slave slut, happy to satisfy the smallest wish of your master. This I promise you.”
For the first time Tallun noticed the pounding on the lower door. “What is that?” he demanded. He gestured to one of his men. “Pax, open the door. It must be the town guard. We will need their help getting back to the piers.”
The pirate that Tallun had signaled approached the knot of women gathered at the door. He raised his hands over his head and growled while striding toward them. All but one screamed and retreated from the door. The pirates laughed. The only woman who did not run was Toria. She stood calmly between the door and the lone pirate. In her hands she held two knives. One was long and wickedly curved, the other shorter, but still deadly in its design. The pirates had no knowledge of the art of fighting with the Tooth and Claw.
The pirate named Pax looked at the woman and shook his head. “Are you aiming to scare me, Love? A thread of a girl such as yourself?”
It was true, Toria was small, even for a woman of Olvion. She stood only as tall as the pirate’s shoulder. She did not move as he advanced, even when he shoved his dowel into his belt and withdrew his knife. The pounding on the door behind her continued. Now that the weight of the other women was removed it started to splinter inward.
Tallun frowned. “Stop mucking about, Pax. She is baring weapons against you. Do you need help to kill a small girl?”
The other pirates laughed. Pax’s face reddened. He turned to hold his knife hand out in front of himself. Bending his knees he slid his feet forward as he prepared to attack.
The door from the alleyway popped and cracked as the assault upon it from outside increased.
Toria lunged. Suddenly Pax was looking at the hand that formerly held his knife. There were two long and bloody slices on it. One was along his wrist. It dripped blood onto the floor. The other cut had severed muscle and nerves. His knife was still ringing from its collision with the floor.
There was silence in the room. The girl’s attack had been so swift that few had even seen her move. The watching women cheered.
Pax snarled and shifted his gaze from his ruined hand to Toria. “You slut of a cur-beast. You will die slow and in agony for that.”
“No,” Toria answered. “You will die and it will be so fast you will not see it coming.”
Pax drew his sword with his uninjured hand. He swung it left and right a few times to get a feel for the weapon in his weak hand. Then he growled and leapt forward. He meant to cut the little woman in two with a backhanded slash of the broad-bladed weapon. Instead the girl ducked down, then up, avoiding the blade, and was now standing nose to nose with the pirate.
The snarl was still on Pax’s face. He glared into Toria’s eyes, his hate obvious for all to see. Then his expression faded. His eyes took on a questioning look. Something had gone wrong. His sword dangled from his fingers then clattered to the floor alongside his knife.
Tallun was watching from the base of the stairs, mesmerized. Again, few had been able to detect the girl’s movements. Now he saw one of his best crewmen teetering before her. The woman’s long knife was buried to the hilt in his neck, the shorter one was angled upward under his ribcage and into his heart. The neck wound spouted gore in evenly timed rhythms all the way to the wooden wall beside them.
Then Pax was dead. He died before he dropped and now lay in a bloody heap on the floor.
Tallun snapped out of his trance. His fury increased. He turned to his men behind him. “Why are you standing there? She killed your shipmate, chop that bitch to pieces.”
The remaining seven pirates moved forward with weapons drawn. Dwan picked that moment to dart forward and try to plant her dagger into Tallun’s chest. Alas, she did not have Toria’s natural speed and the distance she had to cross gave the pirate captain time to see her attack and grab her wrists.
Tallun put his face an inch from Dwan’s. “Enough of this. No amount of treasure is worth the trouble you bring. You will die at this moment, slave.”
Tallun squeezed Dwan’s wrist until she dropped her weapon, crying out in pain. She tried to knee him in his private parts, but he turned his hip toward her, protecting himself. Then he released her wrists and wrapped both hands around her throat. He applied pressure and watched her eyes. Her obvious pain a
nd fear encouraged him. Why had he not done this earlier? The pirate’s twisted mentality excited him.
Dwan managed to spit in his face. Tallun pushed her out to arm’s length and continued to squeeze. He could feel her pulse under his palms. Her eyelids fluttered. Her arms stopped beating against him and dropped to her sides. The other women shouted and screamed, but they were held back by the other pirates.
There was a loud crash and a shattering of wood and metal. The cellar door exploded from its frame and shot across the room to fall broken and splintered on the floor.
Tallun and his men expected to see members of the town guard. Instead they saw a huge man wearing a black leather vest. His hair was an impossible golden color and his eyes were a pale blue. No man on this planet had features like that.
The big man took in the scene in the cellar. His eyes roamed over the women and settled on the one that Tallun was strangling. With a fierce snarl the giant rushed forward. Two of Tallun’s pirates stepped in front of him, protecting their captain. Before their drawn weapons could find a target the big man bowled into them. One man was struck by his shoulder and propelled backward into a wall. The other was viciously backhanded. That one spun like a child’s toy and crashed against an overturned table. Just before the golden haired man reached them, Tallun released the woman and sprinted in terror to the stairway landing.
Taggart caught Dwan before her body could hit the floor. The sound of combat erupted behind him as Lyyl and Geraar intercepted the other pirates who were attempting to bury their blades into the big man’s back. Taggart ignored everything that was happening. He peered into Dwan’s face. She was unconscious and did not appear to be breathing. He called her name, begging her to answer, to open her eyes. Taggart held her close and prayed for her to speak, to give some indication that life still existed in her.
When the pirates surged forward to attack Taggart from behind, Lyyl and Geraar engaged them. It was seven against two until one of the pirates fell forward. The two warriors saw Toria behind him, blood on both of her knives. Then Tay, now recovered from her unconsciousness, leapt in with her dagger in one hand and the unfortunate Pax’s sword in the other. The four of them fiercely beat the pirates back, giving Taggart a chance to tend to Dwan.
Using their greater numbers, the seamen regained their composure and opened up their battle line, intending to encircle the four youths. Then, unexpectedly, one of the pirates screamed in pain. Two blurs of white fur had attached themselves to his head and face. The pirate wailed as the two Mountain Children dug their claws and teeth into his face and neck. The beleaguered pirate screamed in agony and dropped his sword, trying to use both hands to pry the animals from his face. Every time he got a good grip on one of them and tried to pull them off, the pain of the embedded claws would make him stop his efforts. He finally fell to the ground and thrashed in misery.
Geraar sidestepped a sword thrust and leapt inside the pirate’s defense. He threw a punch to the man’s throat then followed up with his own sword. The blade was driven through the ribcage and emerged from the pirate’s back. He dropped without a sound, dead before he hit the dirt floor.
Toria heard a grunt from her left and looked to see her cousin wearing a painful expression. His blade was buried into a pirate’s side but another seaman had lunged and stabbed Lyyl along his ribcage. The wound did not appear to be deep, but the pain almost caused the warrior to drop his weapon. Toria shouted in anger and threw herself at the pirate who was now withdrawing his sword in preparation for another lunge. Unfortunately for him, he had focused his attention entirely on Lyyl and did not see the tornado of swinging arms and knives coming his way. Toria slashed down with one hand and up with the other. The blades bit deeply into the man’s shoulder muscle and abdomen. By the time he realized he’d been assaulted she had delivered a second attack, this time slicing the large muscles of his thigh and his carotid. Seeing the damage she had inflicted, the woman turned her attention to another pirate. The savaged man opened his mouth to say something then closed it. He dropped his sword and turned as if looking for a place to sit. Then he fell to the floor on his back. The man’s mouth continued to open and close wordlessly.
The remaining five pirates seemed to lose their confidence. One escaped through the ruined cellar door. Another tried to follow him but was skewered by Geraar’s sword.
Tay parried a lunge with her sword and countered by driving her dagger up under her attacker’s ribcage. The man looked as if he was going to cry. He fell to the floor and crawled over to the wall, coating the floor with blood as he went.
Then it was over. The two pirates who remained were able to scramble through the open cellar door to safety. They were not followed.
The warriors gathered around Taggart and Dwan. Dwan’s head was now lying on a folded cape and Taggart was bent over her, delivering breaths over and over into her stilled lungs. Dayel was by her side, holding her hand and rubbing her forearm. She knew her efforts would accomplish nothing, she felt compelled to do something however.
Some of the healers tried to gently pull Taggart away from her so that they could put their skills to use on her, but he did not even notice their efforts.
The warriors and the abducted women were stunned into silence at the scene taking place before them. Here was a giant of a man whose physical strength was so obvious. Yet he was holding the woman with such gentleness as he continued to breathe for her. Silent tears gathered at his eyes and ran down his face. After each injected breath he would pull his face away and watch her as the air escaped from her lungs. Then he would start again.
Many of the women also shed tears. The medical strategy of rescue breathing had been known to the healers of Olvion for many summers. They knew of the technique’s importance but also of its limits. Unlike Taggart, they all knew how long Tallun had maintained his stranglehold on the young woman. They knew that it would take a miracle, at this point, for his efforts to produce results.
***
Captain Jile stood on the raised quartermaster deck and observed the approach to the harbor. The cliffs along the southern edge of the island showed no signs of preparation for attack. That meant nothing, of course. The catapults and trebuchets could be quickly loaded and operated once the fleet committed itself. If they were caught during their entry to the harbor there would be no place to go, no room to maneuver away from destruction.
Jile looked back at the line of ships behind him. So many men, so many good seamen, and all of them were depending upon him to make the right decision. Such a state of affairs would be daunting to most men. Not so for a man such as he. He had been commanding men for longer than most of the seamen had been alive. He knew that the only thing one could do in such a position was to make his best guess and pray he was correct. It was as simple as that. If he guessed correctly, they would celebrate. If not, they would die.
Jile took another look at the cliffs above him. Then he turned to his First Mate. “Raise the pennant, we’re going in.”
The mate raised a red and yellow striped flag onto the halyard. Behind the Dreadnaught all of the ships in the invading fleet dropped half of their sails, slowing their speed for the tricky entrance to the harbor.
At the island waterfront, Lampte saw the raising of the pennant on the lead ship and knew what it meant. He had seen them out there and guessed that they would be there to support this surprising invasion.
Lampte was corrupt, but he was not stupid. Indeed, it was his intelligence that allowed him to rise to the governorship of the Council. With little to do with his time between council meetings he often occupied himself with “what ifs”. For instance, he once asked himself: What if an invasion fleet were able to get through the gauntlet of cliff defenses upon which the island relied?
The idea had intrigued him, and so he put some thought into the matter. Because the prospect was so remote he did not want to spend a lot of treasure on it. While piracy was the primary source of income for the island, a small but growing act
ivity was the trading of goods with those seaside towns which ignored the edicts of the various kings and nobles against doing business with the pirate enclave.
The volcanic island was so rich in metals and ores that one of its largest products was metal goods. The simplest and most sought after trade good was Kylee Chain. The quality of the iron found on the island, mixed with some exotic ores, made for excellent quality chain which was known for its ability to withstand rust and erosion. With the demand for the product being so high, there was always much of it produced and stored, ready for loading onto ships.
So to indulge his musings Lampte had commandeered a length of thick chain and had it laid on the bottom of the harbor approach channel. One end had been secured to a small islet which sat just north of the harbor. The other end was secured to a man-powered winch on the island itself.
Lampte reached out and grabbed a member of the town guard who was passing by with an armload of arrows. The Governor delivered instructions to the man then designated ten more seamen to join him. The pirates took off jogging down the dirt road to the path that ran alongside the harbor approach.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Dayel still knelt by Dwan’s side, holding her hand. The big man, whom she now realized was Tag-Gar, The Legend, continued his attempts to restart her breathing. One of the healers, knowing that too much time had passed, gently put her hands on his shoulder and tried to pull him away. It was like trying to move a mountain. He ignored her efforts. The women gathered around them quietly to watch as the big man would breathe twice into her mouth then pull back to watch for a reaction as the air escaped her lungs.
He laid her on her back and started to push on her chest after each breath. There was no emotion evident on his face, just the slow falling of silent tears. The healers saw what he was doing, and one leaned over her. With her arms locked straight out, she started pushing rhythmically up and down on her chest. The healer knew it was a futile effort, but she was so moved by the man’s anguish that she felt compelled to join in.
The Coastal Kingdoms of Olvion: Book Two of The Chronicles of Olvion Page 42
