by John Booth
Jalia at Bay
by
John Booth
Jalia and Daniel awake in the forest to find they have been robbed. While all their goods were precious to them, they most keenly feel the loss of the magic ring and dagger. Determined to retrieve them they set out on a quest that will take them away from Bagdor and east along the River Jalon.
Book 4 of Jalia - The World of Jalon
First published in May 2013 by John Booth Enterprises Ltd
Cover Design by JBE
Jalon Map by JBE
Copyright ©2013 John Booth All rights reserved
John Booth asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work,
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other Books by John Booth on Amazon Kindle
Horror
The Inspector Monde Mysteries
Adult Fantasy
Jalia on the Road
Jalia in the North
Jalia and the Slavers
Jalia at Bay
Gally Delbar
Wizards
Jake’s War
Jake’s Justice
The Spellbinder
Scotland Hard
Revenge of the Brotherhood
London Gothic
Carlotta and the Krius Scepter
The Lost
Young Adult
House of Silver Magic
Sapphire Magic: Breaking Glass
Gold Magic: Terror in Mind
The Magic Series (Anthology)
Shaddowdon
Visit the author’s web page Scrawls in the Dust
Coming Soon:
Jalia Prevails (Jalia #5)
Chapters
1. Robbed
2. Dell
3. Village in the Forest
4. Justice
5. Trouble at Sweetwater
6. Betrayal
7. The Raid
8. Three Hours Earlier…
9. Taldon’s Fort
10. Slaves
11. Death Comes Stalking
12. Hala
13. Ygdrassal
14. Reunion
15. Bickering
16. The Ambush
17. A Matter of Donkeys
18. Making Friends
19. Making Camp
20. Priven
21. Boathaven
22. Disaster
1. Robbed
When Princess Clea of the Fairie imbued Daniel’s dagger with the magic to follow commands that began ‘Magic sword…’ she was unaware that the dagger was an ancient construct of the Magician Kings. As a result, its original purpose to hide the heir to the Magician Kings and suppress his magical power was weakened.
When Daniel gave the Fairie the magic jewel known as the Black Pyramid they honored the request made by the prophet Jer a’Dall and implanted healing magic within him. Magic loves a template and Daniels inherent magical power, already having healed his brother, became focused on healing. Daniel used healing magic on a number of occasions over the next couple of years, which he remained oblivious to, though Jalia took note.
After killing the Mine Owners at Telmar, Jalia decided they should return to Bagdor, having become sickened by their roles as assassin. Continual use of the magic ring and dagger however, had made them careless.
From: The Second Age of the Magician Kings
Jalia al’Dare woke with a blinding headache. She was lying on her back in the depths of a forest. Birds sang and if she had possessed a bow, she would have shot them, their songs made her head hurt. Someone held her hand and she turned her head to see who it was.
The world spun and lights flashed across her eyes. For a few seconds she lost consciousness. She recovered to see Daniel al’Degar, her traveling companion of these last two years, lying beside her. His head was covered in blood and a host of flies were feasting on it.
They had been traveling to Bagdor through the Northern Forest. It was a journey that would take them many weeks and they had barely started it. They had only camped twice since they had ridden over bridge that connected the seven island city of Telmar to the mainland.
Jalia was eighteen years old and had been traveling Jalon for nearly three years. She slew a giant for the King of Bagdor and then had to steal the reward money before running for her life. She was five feet six inches tall of slim build and not an ounce of fat on her body.
Jalia was blessed with piercing blue eyes that tended to startle people she encountered. Blue eyes were unheard of in Jalon. Jalia’s mother had come from somewhere far to the west where such things were reputedly common.
The thoughts, ‘my weapons, my money,’ passed through her mind like an arrow as she came fully to her senses. Forgetting about Daniel, she took stock of her assets. The calfskin money belt that usually stretched tight around her lower abdomen below her clothes was gone, as was the throwing knife she carried at her waist. Jalia reached for the knife in her boot and discovered her boots were missing. Not surprisingly, so was the knife.
Her left hand ran over her right and she discovered her ring was also missing. That was the worst loss of all and she tried not to think about it. Jalia knew her sword was gone, as was its scabbard. She wore the sword across her back and had felt its absence the moment she woke.
The fact that her leather jerkin and skirt were also missing did not bother her over much. Whoever stole her clothes had left her in her wool shirt and underskirt. She never wore knickers, but her body beneath the underskirt felt untouched. The thieves had not been interested in her body, which Jalia regarded as slightly insulting even as she breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief.
Only after she had taken stock of her property did she turn to look at Daniel to check if he was still alive. Jalia seethed with cold rage. Whoever had done this to them was going to pay with their lives, but only after she had tortured them for several days.
Daniel was breathing. That knowledge caused an unexpected wave of relief to run through her and she almost collapsed on top of him. The blood had stopped leaking from his head but he looked to be in a terrible state. Jalia shook him.
“Stop it, that hurts,” Daniel complained and feebly brought his arms up to stop her.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Jalia said callously as she shook him again. “We have been robbed, Daniel. They have stripped us down to our underwear and taken everything. My ring, my money, my daggers, my horse, my sword, my clothes, your dagger, your sword, your horse, your damned donkeys…”
Daniel’s hand seized Jalia neck in a tight grip and she stopped shaking him, having finally achieved her intention of getting his attention.
“They took Ferd?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I just told you, everything. They took everything,” Jalia whispered hoarsely, as Daniel’s grip on her throat was too tight to speak normally.
“Damn,” Daniel sat upright, letting go of Jalia. The world spun around and he fell back to the ground. “I remember waking up and seeing you near to me. I crawled over and took your hand and then I must have fainted again.”
“Well, that was very gallant of you, Daniel. However, it would have been more use if you had gutted the bastards that did this to us. Do you remember what happened?”
“No. I need water, Jalia. I can’t think. My head is killing me.”
“I suppose I’ll have to get you some.” Jalia needed water herself, so her words were just to tease Daniel about how put upon she felt. Daniel waved the flies from his face and they buzzed around his head.
Jalia staggered to her feet and allowed instinct to take over. She walked downhill and found a small brook a hundred yards away from where Daniel waited. As she bent down to drink, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water. She had a bump the size of a duck egg on the side of her head. No wonder it hurt so much.
The water in the brook was ice cold, having risen from a spring a short distance away. It was mid-summer and the heat in the forest was oppressive. Jalia stuck her head deep into the water. The water cooled her forehead and for the first time since she awoke, she felt truly alive.
When she surfaced, Jalia wondered how to get the water to Daniel. She shrugged as she realized there was only one method to hand. She took off her wool shirt exposing her body and plunged it into the water. When it was thoroughly soaked, she bunched it together and lifted it clear of the water. She set off as fast as she could while the water ran from her cupped hands.
Daniel was sitting up when he saw the semi-naked girl running towards him with her arms cupped around her shirt.
“I’m sorry, Jalia. My head hurts far too much for sex. Though if you want to perform solo, I wouldn’t mind watching,” Daniel said gravely.
He gave her the boyish grin that Jalia found both endearing and annoying at the same time. As punishment for his comment, he found the soaked shirt flying towards his head and put his hands up to stop it braining him. The soaked wool wrapped soggily around his head and hands. He toppled back to the ground. For a few moments, there was silence in the forest, broken only by the buzzing of insects and the singing of birds.
“This feels so good,” Daniel said as the cold water trickled from the shirt and over his aching head.
“I still haven’t forgiven you for worrying more about that stupid donkey of yours than all our other possessions. I had a lot of money in that belt.”
“Ferd and I go back a long way, Jalia. He’s my oldest friend. When Yousef and I first started trading the Golden Triangle, he was my only friend.”
“What about Yousef? He is your brother, after all,” Jalia retorted, but there was no fight in her words, she knew better.
“You’ve met Yousef. You rescued me when he tried to sell me into slavery. What do you think?”
“I will concede the point, Daniel, but what about your dagger? It was given powers by those Fairie friends of yours, isn’t that worth something to you?”
“Yes, more importantly, the dagger is the only gift from my mother I possess. I intend to get my dagger back, Jalia. Believe me.”
They stopped talking as they had reached agreement. Jalia looked over Daniel critically as he removed the soggy, bloodstained shirt from his head.
Daniel was seventeen years old, but looked older, as if he was in his mid-twenties. His skin was darker than Jalia’s and his hair black. Still, by the standards of Jalon, he was light of skin. His eyes were brown, like dark pools. When Jalia first met him, he had seemed like a little boy. The times he had all but died and relied on Fairie magic to bring him back to life had aged him. His face was no longer as round and boyish as it used to be, but when he laughed his dimples still showed.
Daniel threw the shirt to her and rose to his feet a little unsteadily. “You go and wash that in whatever stream you soaked it in and I shall backtrack along the trail and find out what happened to us.”
“If you get the chance to kill anybody, remember to save one for me.” Jalia said brightly. Despite the apparent humor in her voice Daniel knew she wasn’t joking and meant every word. He smiled. Living with a tigress was always dangerous, but it had never proved to be boring.
It was easy to track the way they had been dragged. Daniel was skilled at tracking, but skills were hardly needed when there was a line of flattened ferns, not to mention the trail of fly covered blood.
He recognized the overgrown road they had been traveling on the moment he saw it. A thousand years ago, Jalon had been heavily populated. When the Fairie waged a genocidal war on the Magician Kings, the country and its people were devastated. Untold thousands starved to death as crops burned. Farmland reverted back to woodland and then to forest. Some of the ancient roads still survived and it had been one of those roads they followed.
The sides of the road had been encroached upon by tall oak and beech trees. The road reduced to little more than a path. Two tall trees stood only ten feet apart from each other, with the road sandwiched between them. Daniel looked up and saw a large section of tree trunk suspended on two ropes and hung from large branches. Someone had set the trunk to swing at unsuspecting travelers. It would swing low enough to hit them, but high enough not to injure their horses.
“We never saw it coming,” Jalia remarked behind him. Daniel did not react. He had heard her approaching and identified her almost silent tread.
“They will never know what hit them when we catch them.”
“Oh I want them to know exactly who is killing them,” Jalia said softly, “And why.”
2. Dell
Daniel established that they had been attacked by two men and someone smaller, possibly a woman. They followed their trail through the forest. Jalia took the lead. It was not as if following required a good tracker. Four donkeys and two horses left marks enough for even a fool to follow.
Jalia strode out in front of Daniel with feral intensity, shaking with barely suppressed rage, not helped by the pain in her feet. Daniel had been brought up barefoot and walking without boots was no hardship for him. The soles of his feet were as hard as leather. Jalia, however, had been brought up in luxury in Bagdor and always wore something on her feet. She cursed and moaned each time her foot caught on a stone or was pricked by a bramble; something Daniel found highly amusing. Especially as the curses she was came up with were original and inventive.
Daniel reflected on Jalia’s anger. He had not seen her like this since the time he gave the Black Pyramid to the Fairie. He had stolen it from her and betrayed her trust. She broke his legs as punishment and would have killed him, he reflected ruefully. She certainly had not been aware the Fairie had placed a healing spell on him. After all, he hadn’t known about it.
Jalia had become less prone to kill people and ask questions later in the time they had traveled together. In Telmar, she was sickened by the assassinations they carried out.
Daniel was sure that was the reason she wanted to go home, to find out who she had become by comparing herself with the girl that fled Bagdor.
“Damn it!” Jalia cried as she stood on a bramble with large and vicious spikes.
Daniel grinned and was about to say something when he heard a rustle in the bushes beyond. He froze instantly, as did Jalia. In Jalia’s case, this involved precariously balancing on a single leg. Daniel dropped into the ferns and began to move in a circle that would bring him around the bushes. Jalia saw him drop and knew exactly what he was up to. Daniel had a talent for walking unseen and not a single fern stirred as he started to move.
Jalia hopped to face the bushes. She ripped the bramble spike from the sole of her foot. The foot stayed in the air. There was no need to let the person in the bushes know that she was fully able to fight.
A boy aged about thirteen or fourteen came into view. He held a long wicked looking knife. He dressed like a peasant, though his leather jerkin was of higher than usual quality. The boy held his knife in front of him and took up a fighter’s stance, ready to slash his knife across Jalia’s face or stomach. Most people would have regarded him as a significant threat, especially if they were standing on one leg, unarmed and wearing
only underwear. Jalia relaxed, as she realized that this was going to be easy.
“Who are you?” the boy asked as he inched closer. A seasoned fighter would have kept his distance, moving closer served little purpose unless he intended to kill her. The boy did not have a killer’s look in his eyes.
“My name is Jalia, what’s yours?” Jalia asked in a friendly manner. She made no attempt to put her foot on the ground and moved her hand across the sole of the foot in question as if still feeling for painful spikes.
The boy turned out to have less than perfect vision. As he got within three feet of her he gasped in shock.
“You were dead, we checked. You and the man were dead.”
“You killed him, but I was only knocked out. Do the locals treat all travelers like that?”
The boy nearly dropped his knife in fright, undecided as to what to do next. Then he decided to run and spun to find Daniel blocking his way. Daniel tilted his head as if asking a question. Again, the boy faced a choice and decided that getting past Jalia would be the easier route. He swung his knife from side to side as he started towards her.
Jalia pivoted on the leg she was balancing on and kicked the boy in the groin with her apparently injured foot. The boy never saw it coming and the force of the blow wrenched the knife from his hand. The kick lifted him in the air before he fell to the ground at Daniel’s feet. Daniel winced in sympathy at the force of the blow and wondered if the lad would survive it.
Jalia followed through on her kick, ending up on all fours. She performed an acrobat’s roll, plucking the boy’s knife from where it had fallen in one fluid motion.
