Jalia At Bay (Book 4)

by John Booth

  Trik grasped at Mallon as the life ebbed out of him. “Forgive me, my Lord,” he whispered and staggered across the hall towards Jalia. He got halfway before he fell to the floor, dead.

  “I killed your son just like that, except that I had to aim for his neck because he was too fat to risk a gut throw. He might have only wobbled and then where would I have been?”

  Berserk rage overcame Mallon and he screamed “Attack!” as he raced across the room towards the mocking girl. His remaining nephew took up the cry and ran forward, as did his family standing behind him, every single one of them trying to get into the hall to assist the leader of the clan kill the woman.

  Jalia grinned at the thought of a job well done. She spun on her heals and jumped back over the table she had been sitting on. Her foot caught the end of it and she ended up sprawled in an undignified mess by the far wall. A door opened at the back of the hall and many hands dragged her out.

  As Jalia struggled to get to her feet, men barricaded the door she had just come through.

  “Has anybody lit a torch?” Jalia asked and a blazing torch was thrust into her hands by one of the villagers.

  “Thanks. I wonder if Daniel has had long enough?” she said to no one in particular. The door began to bounce as the angry mob in the hall used something akin to a battering ram to try to get through it.

  “That’s as long as I can give him,” she said, and tossed the torch in a high arc towards an open window high on the wall. A sheet blocked the torch’s way for a second, but the sheet had only been tacked lightly over the inside of the window. The sheet was covered in lantern oil. It burst into flames as both sheet and torch fell into the body of the hall.

  A whooshing sound ripped through the building as all the oil doused kindling in the hall caught fire.

  “Sounds like a job well done,” Jalia said cheerfully as screaming began inside the hall.

  8. Three Hours Earlier…

  The villagers milled around the Lord’s House as Daniel tried to get a clearer picture from them on the threat posed by the Taldon Clan. Jalia sat on a table swinging her legs in apparent boredom. She was actually very interested in the plan Daniel would come up with, but she had a reputation for being devil-may-care to maintain.

  “Tell me about the Taldon Clan?” Daniel asked.

  “They prey on us and the other villages in the area. As far as I know, they always have, though I am not local by birth. I wandered here from Bagdor after the old king died. I could not stand to work for his idiot son, Brun Trep.”

  “Is that all the Taldon’s do, steal things from you?”

  “No, they were heavily involved in the slave trade to Telmar until it stopped. They also kidnap local teenagers to use as servants. The girls they use for sex until they get pregnant, then they kill them.”

  “Why would any of the girls get pregnant?” Jalia asked. “Surely, they would have Gintel leaves to prevent it.”

  “The clan live in a fortified area on the top of a hill. Their slaves never leave it once captured, except when they die. The girls can’t get at Gintel.”

  Jalia scowled. To have slaves was bad enough. To use them so they brought about their own deaths was a much worse crime. She was suddenly glad that Daniel had talked her into staying. The Taldon Clan needed a good purging and Jalia was just the woman to do it.

  “The most important thing we have to do is to make sure that Mallon does not find out about his son until a time of our choosing,” Donal explained. “Once he finds out, we will have no time at all.”

  “Then we have no time at all,” Pender Dran said from behind Donal’s back.

  Donal turned around to find Pender standing with Palla Glore beside him. The woman looked beside herself with worry. Even as it was, she was biting into the knuckles of her right hand. Donal looked enquiringly at Pender, but it was Palla who spoke first.

  “Hasen has gone to tell them. I begged him not to. You know they will kill him for bringing them news that Adon is dead. I couldn’t talk him out of it. Hasen believed it was the only way to save the children.” Palla burst into tears and Pender put an arm around her shoulder tenderly, giving her a gentle hug.

  “It’s not your fault, Palla. Are your children safe?” Donal asked and Palla nodded.

  “What will Mallon do when he finds out Adon is dead?” Daniel asked. “The sun will set in an hour or so and he would be a fool to attack the village at night.”

  “He will attack tonight, Daniel, but he is not a fool. Mallon is a passionate man and loves his son, but he understands strategy and will not endanger his kin. However, Mallon will not be able to put off attacking until morning despite that.” Donal paused for breath and thought.

  “He will bring the adult men and women of his clan and they all know how to fight. They will burn us out of our homes and hunt down those that flee.”

  “They will act like soldiers, not a mob?” Daniel asked, trying to understand why the villagers could not fight off the clan when they attacked.

  “They will follow Mallon Taldon’s orders religiously and he will make them act like an army,” Donal explained. “There are only half a dozen men in the village who know how to fight and he will bring dozens of his clan against us.”

  “He will be angry though,” Jalia chimed in. “An angry leader makes mistakes.”

  “Not angry enough to act like a fool,” Donal replied and Jalia shrugged in disagreement.

  “How much time do we have?” Daniel asked as he looked around the inside of the Lord’s House speculatively.

  “Three hours, perhaps four at most,” Donal replied. He noticed Daniel’s gaze and misunderstood. “Do you think we should gather at the Lord’s House and defend ourselves from inside?”

  Jalia snorted at the suggestion and brought her feet up on the table she was sitting on and hugged her legs tightly.

  “Only if you want to make it easy for Mallon and his clan to kill you,” Daniel said. “This is possibly the worst Lord’s House I have ever seen from a defensive point of view. You have built the windows high on the walls, but there is no way up on the inside to allow bowmen to position themselves. This House is more of a trap than a place of safety.”

  “It was built for natural disaster, mainly for if the brook floods the village in spring,” Donal agreed. “The only threat we have comes from the Taldon’s and they live close enough to wait us out if it ever came to a siege.”

  “However, this place could become an effective trap,” Daniel mused.

  He made up his mind and stood straighter as he started to issue orders.

  “Tell everyone in the village to fetch all the tallow and lamp oil they possess and bring it here. Get the children to find tinder in the forest before the light goes. Tell them to find dry twigs and branches, nothing green or wet.”

  Daniel noticed that two men were about to move the bodies of Adon and Twist. He shouted at them to stop.

  “Leave the bodies. Get the benches against the wall. I want a table at the back and a bench for the bodies to sit on in front of the table.”

  Daniel turned to Donal once he saw the men were following his orders. “Get some ladders and men to close and nail shut the shutters on all the windows except the one nearest the door at the back. I want that one covered with a large heavy blanket to stop any light getting through. Make sure the blanket is only lightly tacked up.”

  “I don’t understand,” Donal said.

  We are going to persuade Mallon and his clan to enter our little trap, which will be this room, and we are going to snap the trap shut on them,” Daniel explained.

  “But I’ve just told you. Mallon is far too clever to fall into such a simple trap,” Donal said, shaking his head.

  “He gets angry. He will be distraught at the death of his son. We can use that to tip him over the edge into blind rage.” Daniel pointed at Pender. “You; get someone to help you. Tie the bodies up on that bench so it looks like they are prisoners and not dead.”

  “Ye
s sir,” Pender replied in the voice of a man who knows a leader when he sees one. He nudged Walt al’Dom’s shoulder and the two men took Adon’s body and dragged it across the floor towards the back of the room.

  “This won’t work,” Donal said. “Mallon is not that much of a fool. He can contain his temper when he has to.”

  Daniel swept his arm as if in a gesture of introduction towards Jalia. “Donal Drenal, may I introduce Jalia al’Dare, possibly the most irritating woman in the entire history of Jalon. When she is in a mood to be, that is.”

  Jalia grinned and jumped off the table. She stepped close to Daniel so that their chests touched. Then she stared up at his face belligerently. Though she was pushing him, Daniel stood his ground and pushed back as he looked down on her.

  “Are you insinuating something bad about me?” Jalia asked sweetly.

  “Only that you really know how to get under the skin of an enemy,” Daniel replied solemnly. ‘And your partner’, he added silently.

  “Well that’s all right then.,” She spun on her left heel and brought her right heel crashing down on Daniel’s toes. “Just so long you are absolutely sure you are not insulting me.”

  Daniel hopped around on one foot and used some of the invective Jalia had taught him earlier that day. Jalia sat back on the table and giggled. Daniel could be so much fun sometimes.

  “You mean to leave this girl in here on her own against Mallon and his whole clan?” Donal asked, bemused by the little scene that had just taken place.

  “It’s not a problem,” Jalia told him cheerfully. “I will try not to hurt them too much.”

  “We are going to turn this room into a tinderbox. However, from the front door it must simply look dark. Mallon must not see anything that stops him from entering the room.” Daniel paused and looked at Jalia. “You have to keep him at the door until you have driven him crazy, so that he rushes in and brings his clan with him. Do you understand?”

  “Got you, Daniel. Make sure he doesn’t rush in, and then make sure he does. What could be simpler?”

  “Trik will see right through it,” Donal told them. “Even if you succeed with Mallon, his nephew Trik is nobody’s fool. And he always hated Adon, so he won’t be lost in anger.”

  “I’ll deal with him if I have to,” Jalia said thoughtfully. “I take it this room will be in darkness except for a small lamp. I can wind Mallon up over his son’s death.” Jalia pulled out her knife and knew its blade was much too shiny as it was. She would have to do something about that.

  “Certainly use his son’s body. Give Mallon some hope his son is still alive and then take it away. I haven’t really thought it through,” Daniel confessed. He looked over to where Pender and Walt had trussed up the bodies of Adon and Twist. The toy sword’s hilt in Twist’s eye was a bit of a giveaway, so Daniel pulled it out. The state of Twist’s face was not greatly improved by its removal, as gore hung from the gaping hole.

  Pender bent to take a good look at Twist and Daniel plucked Pender’s straw hat from his head and placed it over Twist’s head at an angle that covered the destroyed eye.

  “All in a good cause,” he told Pender, who looked annoyed at losing his hat.

  Jalia jumped over the table at the back of the room and opened the door. “We’ll need to have some people to barricade this after I leave,” she told Daniel. “I take it you will be out at the front dealing with stragglers and closing the front door?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Do I get to torch the place?” Jalia asked with a grin. She wasn’t really asking though, as both of them well knew.

  “You aren’t going to burn them alive?” Donal asked in horror. “Once we have them trapped in here, they will surrender. The threat of death by burning will be good enough, surely?”

  “You are right,” Daniel agreed. “But Jalia will need a torch to make the threat seem real. She will need to be given a lit torch as soon as she leaves the room.”

  Donal sighed with relief. He was not ready to contemplate burning to death over thirty people, many of them young men and women who were little more than children. He did not see the look that Jalia gave Daniel or the slight nod of his head he gave her back.

  “What if it all goes wrong?” Donal asked. “Mallon may not fall for the trap or most of his family may stay outside.”

  “Then we fight them the old fashioned way,” Jalia said evilly, her grin having become feral. “We fight them one by one, until they are all dead.”

  Daniel stepped out of the Lord’s House to find volunteers to help close the front doors on the Clan. As Daniel expected, he found the only men willing to risk their lives were Donal, Pender and Walt.

  Donal went off to supervise the work inside the Lord’s House while Daniel and Pender discussed how exactly they were going to close the main doors and keep them shut, especially if there were a lot of Taldons trying to get back out.

  The rest of the village fled into the forest. Malda returned with Dell and the two joined the other villagers in the forest. The men waited in their places of concealment near the front of the Lord’s House.

  Exactly as expected, Mallon went straight to the Lord’s House and stepped inside the main doors with his two nephews beside him. The other Taldon’s clustered around the doors trying to listen to what was being said.

  Daniel couldn’t hear what Jalia was saying, but he did her the increasingly loud screams of rage coming from Mallon. Daniel grinned. It was about time someone else had to try and put up with Jalia. When they were out on the trail together Jalia seemed to enjoy tormenting him.

  Mallon’s scream to attack came sooner than Daniel expected. The cry was taken up by the whole clan who, like sheep to the slaughter, pushed each other trying to get into the hall as fast as they could. Many carried torches, which would not help them in the slightest. Daniel nodded at Donal and a few moments later all four men were creeping up on the tail end of the pushing and shoving Taldon clan.

  Daniel grabbed one of the open doors and Donal the other. The Taldons at the back were no longer so eager to get into the room and one of them turned and saw them. Daniel and Donal swept the doors closed before the alarm could be raised.

  They had prepared two logs to prop against the doors, Pender and Walt swung the logs into position while Daniel and Donal tried desperately to hold the doors closed. Already the doors were being pushed open several inches as Taldons discovered that they were trapped inside.

  “We will never hold the doors,” Donal screamed as men held down the logs, which were wedged into the ground and against the doors. The people on the other side were becoming organized and using their strength together. One of the two logs was beginning to splinter under the strain.

  “We only have to hold a little longer,” Daniel shouted as he renewed his own efforts to hold the logs in position.

  There was a whooshing sound and flames spurted out of the gaps in the shutters of the building. The screams in the building reached a crescendo less than a minute later and then the only sounds they heard were those of the fire.

  Daniel and the other men retreated as the heat from the burning building became too intense to stay. Donal, Pender and Walt looked at each other in horror as they realized what they had just done.

  “It must have been the torches they took in with them,” Donal said in a dazed voice.

  “That or the torch I threw in through the window,” Jalia said cheerfully as she came to stand beside them.

  “You planned to do this?” Donal asked in shock.

  “You couldn’t have kept so many people prisoners. There were more of them than there were of you. If you let them go, they would have killed you sooner or later. There was simply no choice.” Daniel replied bleakly and with obvious regret.

  “You would make a good king, Daniel,” Donal said reflectively. “King Haston Trep was just like that. Capable of making hard decisions without flinching, but knowing exactly what he was doing all the time, and sometimes hating it. Just like
you.”

  9. Taldon’s Fort

  The mood in Sweetwater that night was one of sobriety and more than a little shame as villagers made their way back to their cottages from hiding in the forest. The Lord’s House continued to blaze. As it was some distance from the trees, it was decided to let it burn out rather than risking any lives trying to put it out. Pender and Walt were given the onerous task of keeping an eye on the fire during the night and to give warning should begin to spread.

  Jalia and Daniel collected their horses and possessions from where they had left them and spent the night in Donal’s barn. Donal invited them to sleep in the house, but Jalia decided she had lost her possessions once that day and she was going to take no chances that night. She wanted to be close to the horses. It was late in the night before they got to sleep.

  Jalia heard Daniel rise with the crowing of the cock. It was lucky for the Drenal’s rooster that Jalia was once again knifeless. As it was, she rolled over and tried to ignore the crowing and get back to sleep. There was plenty of time to begin chasing their missing possessions as they had horses and Jalia was tired out.

  It was only when Daniel entered the barn with Donal and began to saddle up Jet and Mallon’s horse that Jalia was forced to stir her bones.

  “Are we taking Mallon’s horse? I thought that was Donal’s now.” Jalia asked, stifling a yawn in her open palm.

  “It is,” Daniel replied. “There is somewhere Donal and I have to go before we can begin chasing your knives.”

  Jalia chucked the blanket off and staggered to her feet. She slept fully clothed, something which was not unusual when they were traveling on the road.