“You dogs have taken something that did not belong to you. You will release the Princess Diamanda Tarja and only then will you be allowed the clean death. If you refuse or harm her in any way, the supreme Sultan, Sulieman Tarja, will have you all captured and tortured for years. I, Captain Nergal, have spoken.”
“How did you find us?” barked Catlo, suddenly appearing at Ole and Aisha’s side.
“Does it matter, dog? We are here. We ask for what is ours and give you the best possible bargain for your treachery in the process. It is more than you low-born dogs deserve.”
“And if I tell you to go to hell, you strutting pale pea-cock? What then?” Catlo demanded as he grabbed at his own crotch in a sign of ultimate rudeness to such a chivalrous and proud knight.
Nergal’s lips curled into a sneer “You heard my offer.”
“Did the old woman tell you what we seek?” asked Catlo.
Nergal sat up straighter in his saddle leaning forward. “So, she was not lying about your treasure hunt? I suppose I would be intrigued enough to look at your map. But I’ll not spare your lives for it. I’ll simply read it once you are dead.”
“Wait,” Catlo held up his hand as he grinned mischievously. “I have something for you.”
Nergal stared from his stamping horse and let it trot a couple paces closer to the gate. “Will you give me the princess?”
Catlo snatched up an Umoja spear and cast it with blinding speed at the mounted captain. It hit Xargon square in the ornate steel breastplate, but the bronze head shattered and caused Nergal’s horse only a slight amount of dismay as it danced to the side.
“Now that’s a well-trained horse,” said Ole, under his breath.
“I understand,” said Nergal. “I pity you.” He then wheeled his mount around and rode back down the steep embankment to his waiting army.
A roar of, ‘The Goddess Wills It” echoed up and across the red canyon walls from the mounted army.
“Who gave me that shitty spear anyway?” shouted Catlo. “I can’t believe you Umoja tribesmen! You zebra hunters are savages! What a piece of garbage! I could have killed him with a good weapon. You all saw it! Didn’t you?”
Musa and Nyo jabbered something in argument but Aisha wasn’t paying attention to them any longer.
“We do have the high ground,” said Aisha. “It’s very steep but we have no real walls or defenses, do we?”
Ole shook his head. He was counting the Kathulians silently. “They outnumber us about twenty to one. We might not even have enough arrows for half of them.”
“Is there a back way out of this canyon?”
“No.”
“What do we do?”
“I think if we give them the princess, the Kathulians will grant us a clean death. That’s much better than years of torture,” said Ole with a serious look on his face. He then broke into a grin.
Aisha looked at him in unbelieving disgust.
“We are not giving them Diamanda, at least not yet!” shouted Catlo.
“I hope you have a better plan than just kicking your dogs and yelling,” snapped Aisha.
“Of course, I do. I always have a plan. I just need to vent sometimes,” he said. Then he shouted at his Avarans behind him. “Arman, Feroze, get that dress. You know which one, the big fancy one. Musa, fetch Sefu, Nyo the horse.” Each man vanished to accomplish his task. “Now you will see my genius.” Catlo rubbed his hands together.
Aisha scoffed.
“Laugh now, but the simplest plans are always the best. Ole get your gear and hers, keep her saddle roped to yours. It will be dangerous, but we can’t lose our map, can we?” Catlo ran a hand across Aisha’s cheek and she tore away from him. He smiled wickedly at her reaction.
“What does he mean by simple plan? There are hundreds of Kathulian cavalry down there aching for our blood and enough war elephants to stomp each one of us to a pulp at the same time. We have what, maybe twenty men?”
Ole shrugged. “Seventeen. Including you.”
As if in answer to her words, the Kathulian captain Xargon gave a shout and the cry from his horsemen rattled off the looming canyon walls once again. “The Goddess Wills It!”
Aisha cursed, “Fanatical bastards.”
Ole nodded soberly. “It looks bad but, in the north, we have a saying.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than your friend.”
“Doesn’t sound like a very good friend to me.”
Ole shrugged. “It is hard to find people to trust, especially in our old line of work.”
“Old line?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not a pirate anymore and you’re not anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
Ole grinned wolfishly. “I know what happened on that night.”
“What night?”
“What night?” He shook his head. “And you said I could trust you, and you won’t admit to it?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to admit to.”
“You know very well of what I speak. The Bloody Bay of Hermoz night! The greatest defeat a pirate navy has had in generations. It lost us the Cutlass Empire. Obviously, you’re on land now.” She was about to protest again but he stopped her with, “I could have walked across the Straits of Kho-Peshli on the dead and bodies and not gotten wet!””
She cut him off. “Maybe I had other responsibilities. Maybe I needed a change.”
“I hear that a tiger can’t change its stripes,” he prodded. “And everyone knows you were in charge of the Black Armada.”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “We have other problems now! They’re moving.”
The Kathulian cavalry in a magnificent square of horsemen in ten rows of ten were moving sideways. A perfect square of steel, silk, men, leather, and horse were turning as one. It was one of their favored displays of military precision designed to awe their enemies into surrender. The likelihood it would cow bandits, though, was slim.
Someone else was laughing now. It was Sefu, the Umoja woman. She was drunk and wearing one of Diamanda’s gowns. It was a poor disguise and wouldn’t fool anyone for more than a moment.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Catlo, “but we will only need a few moments to get ahead of them. They are fine horsemen, but I have a plan.”
“We have to ride fast,” said Ole. “If you try and escape us, I promise they will run you down and slay you or worse. You must stay with me.”
Aisha snorted. “There is a plan?”
Ole nodded. “I know what we are going to do. It should work.”
“Care to tell me?”
“Not yet. Just keep up and stay right behind me,” he said as he mounted his horse.
“And let the bear get me?”
“There are no bears in Valchiki,” Ole said.
“How about I get my weapons back, if we may indeed be riding into the teeth of the dragon?” she asked.
Ole looked to Catlo. “She has a point.”
Catlo frowned. “All right, give her the blades, but no spear and no bow.”
Aisha rolled her eyes. No point in telling them she didn’t use a bow with any skill. Ole gave her the sword belt and then fished in his saddle bag for her other knives.
“I’m trusting you,” he said.
“I’m trusting me, too,” she said.
Sefu, the Umoja woman, drunkenly laughed atop her horse. She almost fell from her perch as she leaned like a sinking ship. Musa and Nyo secured her to the saddle and then lashed a few small branches to the stirrups to drag behind the horse.
“Don’t forget her special baggage train,” called Catlo.
The Umoja men grumbled an answer and disappeared into one of the adobe buildings farther up the canyon.
Catlo leapt atop his horse and the handful of Avaran men did the same. “Everyone ready?”
Galtier, already upon his own horse, said, “I’ll lead the escape.”
“There is no flank.”
“Then watch the back.”
Galtier snarled an oath. “Ole, you bring up the rear!”
Ole gave him a patronizing salute in reply.
Aisha glanced back down to the valley floor. The shifting square of Kathulian cavalry had almost finished their rotation and were simultaneously moving to the first step of the slope. They were cautious, waiting to see if there would be any missile attack or other defense mounted. The lack thereof yet only heartened them, and another resounding cry of doom echoed from their lips.
Catlo rode up beside Aisha. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but Kathulian war elephants cannot abide a certain animal.”
“What’s that?”
“Pigs,” laughed Catlo. “Burning, squealing pigs make elephants go mad!”
Aisha sniffed the air, a foul scent warming the back of her throat. A dozen of the animals suddenly came pouring forth from the outbuilding. Their backs were aflame. They had collars and were dragging small branches not unlike Sefu’s horse. This raised the red dust considerably as the animals fled squealing from before the Umoja men that beat them with switches.
One of the Avarans slapped Sefu’s horse and the mount jerked away and raced down the slope, also kicking up a cloud of dust as the baggage train of fiery pigs followed suit.
“Now!” cried Catlo. He was the first out the gate, followed closely by a pair of Avarans who held the reins of Diamanda’s horse. One of the Umoja’s held the reins to Zahur’s mule. It seemed even his corpse would escape.
Ole waited a moment for Aisha saying, “Stay with me.”
The cloud of dust and wild shouts of the Avarans and Umoja, echoed in the canyon. The Kathulians below, likely thinking that the dozen odd bandits were mounting a last-ditch attack, gave a shout and pressed their spears forward to meet the charge until they noticed the flowing white gown foremost amongst the charge. Xargon called for arms to be raised and in unison the deadly blades were raised as they allowed Sefu’s horse to barrage into their midst followed close behind by the pack of screeching, flaming swine. The dust and cries of confusion rattled into the sky and Catlo’s laugh was greatest of all.
Only a few paces down from the gate, Catlo turned hard left and followed a near invisible goat trail that wound across the canyon wall and back toward the way they had first come. It did not conceal them and, as near as Aisha could tell, in moments the Kathulians would surely be in hot pursuit.
Catlo led them across the open trail as fast as he dared take the horses. One false move and any one of them could plunge off the side and be dashed among the rocks far below.
Sefu plunged into the waiting Kathulians laughing maniacally as she slid from her saddle. They grabbed her reins and wondered at her wearing the dress of the princess, then the fiery boars were upon them and they cried out in alarm before hurriedly dispatching the animals in disgust.
Some of the pigs made it past the first few knights and raced to and fro squealing in crazed pain. The war elephants panicked and broke ranks, throwing their mahout drivers from off the top of their war platforms and charging over the top of their own cavalry as the madness induced by the burning pigs destroyed the synchronized Kathulian valor.
As soon as they spotted the fleeing bandits, they shouted and raced down the canyon floor after them.
The trail gradually lowered and hit the bottom of the canyon. Here they could go faster as there was no danger of falling from a great height, but they were also on the same level field as the Kathulians who were less than a quarter mile behind them.
They came upon a fork in the canyon, Aisha recognizing that the right-hand path had been Black Dragon canyon. She had no idea where this one led, but Catlo and the others raced into it. She spurred her mount and followed.
It soon narrowed to a point where only two horses could fit abreast of one another. It started to slope upward, and the climb became strenuous for the tiring horses.
“Not much farther,” called Catlo.
Aisha looked behind. The Kathulians were gaining on them. Soon they would be close enough for bowshot and she did not doubt that some of the cavaliers would be good shots.
The thought had just passed through her mind when a shaft splintered in the rocks just above her head. An Umoja slumped in the saddle as one of the arrows struck him in the neck. He fell from his horse, but the beast followed its comrades heedless of the man being drug from the stirrups.
The gag which had covered Diamanda’s mouth had slipped and she was screaming and calling Catlo every foul name known to man as she was carried along.
Another arrow hit an Avaran close beside Aisha. He fell and sprawled from his saddle almost into her lap. She spurred her horse and let him fall behind. She didn’t look back.
Catlo at the fore, disappeared from view. The horses struggled to mount the final step, a steep lip of rock almost six feet in height. One of the Avarans tumbled from his horse in the attempt. The Umoja urged Diamanda’s horse and then his own up without bothering to assist the fallen man who cursed profusely. Zahur’s mule made the leap without incident.
Ole turned and said, “Spur your horse up, but hold the reins, don’t let her jump too far forward.”
Aisha noted the Kathulians close behind and saw them drawing their bows for another shot as their horses carried them forward. She did as Ole said and had her horse leap up over the Avaran who was still trying to regain his horse’s reins.
Ole had told her rightly. Just as she came up the lip of rock, she was awed at the sheer drop only a pace ahead of her. She yanked back on the reins harder than she meant and still was dizzied at the vertical drop looming before her.
Catlo called out, “Hurry up! Where is Ole?”
“He is coming!”
Catlo was a dozen yards to her left on a bare cleft of a rocky trail. He had dismounted and was leading his horse over a rickety rope and plank bridge. It swayed malevolently in the howling winds of the deep canyon.
There was only room on the trail for man and beast in single file and everyone was nervous to get across the bridge before the Kathulians arrived.
“Let me go, Catlo!” urged Diamanda.
“Shut up!” he said.
“You won’t get away with this,” she threatened.
“I already have! Haha!”
Aisha looked behind her and saw that Ole was had made it up, but the last Avaran was not there.
Ole shook his head. He then turned to watch the notch while holding a head-sized boulder. As soon as a Kathulian scout peeked his head over the rim, Ole threw the missile, smashing the man’s skull to a bloody pulp. Shouts of terror sounded behind as the boulder continued its tumbling descent striking more men and horses in the process.
Catlo was halfway across when one of the Avarans, probably Feroze, tried to cross. “Not yet fool! Do you want to make us all fall? One at a time.”
The man looked nervously to Catlo then back at the others then to the notch from which they had just emerged which the Kathulians would surely sprout up from like thorny wheat at any moment.
Catlo reached the other side then snarled, “Send Diamanda next.”
“No! I won’t go with you!” she cried.
“Put her over the horse’s saddle and lead it over Feroze.”
The Avaran reluctantly turned back from the first few paces across the bridge and took the reins of Diamanda’s horse from an Umoja. Diamanda was still bound but struggled in the saddle and tried to kick the Avaran.
It was foolish and would yield nothing, but Aisha reluctantly had to admire the woman’s tenacity.
“Put her over your knee and beat some manners into her if you have to,” shouted Catlo. “You are wasting time!”
Feroze slapped at Diamanda and she resisted, still kicking at him. The Umoja behind her yanked her from the saddle then slung her over it on her stomach. She grunted loudly from the pain of being
thrown like a sack of wheat. Feroze then led the horse over the swaying bridge all the while muttering prayers to Cybele.
Catlo watched all of them eagerly. “We should have had our map closer to the front. I don’t want anything happening to her, Ole!” he shouted.
“She’ll make it,” answered Ole.
“Thanks for not calling me a map,” she growled.
“Of course.” He turned and deftly threw a hatchet through the notched opening and took a scouting Kathulian in the face. The foe mutely fell back amongst his comrades and no more of them chanced a look over the edge for another minute.
Galtier raced his horse over the rickety bridge and Aisha thought he might fall over the side in his haste but he made it to the other side.
The two Umoja, Musa and Nyo, went next, leading Zahur’s mule in their train, the rest of the bandits shuffled over the swaying bridge, anxious to escape the coming Kathulian horde.
Ole urged Aisha to go next.
“What about you?”
“Trust me, I’ll be right behind you.”
Aisha started across the bridge. With each step it seemed to sway more. The winds battered at her and the wooden planks looked ready to snap. It was a very long way down. A muddy stream at the bottom looked no wider than a belt, the boulders in its torrent looked like mere warts.
Her horse panicked, its eyes wide with fear. Aisha reached up and held the animal’s muzzle and clicked her tongue to soothe it. It yanked on the reins and reared.
“Damnit!” she tugged on the reins to bring it under control. “Follow me you damn fool beast!”
Then it settled and trotted across the bridge with her. She’d been sure for a moment there that it was the end. Ole hurried across just after her and began sawing at the ropes.
“Won’t we have to come this way again?”
“I hope not,” said Catlo, “especially with the Kathulians stuck on the other side.” He laughed long and loud, just as a pair of the cavaliers stuck their spiral helmeted heads up over the cleft of rock to see what was happening. They shot a few arrows, but the gale force winds sent the shafts far afield to smash mutely against the cliffs.
Sowing Dragon Teeth Page 6
