Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (46 page)

With a surprised
bellow,
the overweight man released Rachael who then fell
to the floor. The Innkeeper tried to grab the clinging attacker at
his back, but G’Taklar was attached
like
a shell
on
a
turtle. The man bellowed again and crashed
backward
into the wall thereby slamming G’Taklar’s back
hard against the dried mud wall.

G’Taklar started to lose his grip.

“
Hold on and push with your hands, and
whatever you do don’t let loose of this berserk hoofhorn!”
Jatar advised.

Rachael looked up
from
the floor and saw the two men banging and crashing
back and forth down the hall until they reached the stairway. The
innkeeper could not see because his head was forced down nearly to
his chest, so when he backed up in another attempt to pound
G’Taklar against the wall he didn’t know he was headed for the open
stairway to the common room.

“Look out Guitar,” Rachael screamed, “the
stairs!”

Jatar was also watching the proceeding
through G’Taklar’s eyes, and where the boy’s attention was
concentrated on holding on while being bashed against walls,
Jatar’s was on their next move.

He saw the stairway coming just before they
spun to face away from it and thought to G’Taklar,
“Get ready to
let loose and drop to the floor when I tell you, get as low as
possible… NOW!”
he commanded.

G’Taklar let loose, and truth be told he
could not have held on much longer anyway. He fell to the floor and
rolled into a ball. The fat man was headed
backward
to smash him against the next wall, but tripped
over him instead and went head over heels down the stairway.

When G’Taklar crawled over to look down
after him he saw the man stretched out on the landing where the
stairs turned, where he was moaning feebly, but not rising.

G’Taklar got up and staggered over to where
Rachael was sobbing on the floor while holding the torn front of
her dress closed with her left hand. He helped her stand up and was
rewarded for his gallantry by a sharp slap to his face by her small
free hand.

“You imbecile!” she cried out, “I could have
handled my boss, he’s gotten rough before, now where am I supposed
to live? Where can I find a job?”

“What are you talking about?” the confused
and hurt young man asked.

“That was Fats, the innkeeper, my boss,
ex-boss now,” she informed G’Taklar

“But he was going to rape you!” he
exclaimed, in a hurt voice.

“He would have stopped, or even if he had
not, it probably would have been for the best,” she sobbed,
thinking of her bleak future.

“What do you mean?” G’Taklar asked, still
confused.

“It’s none of your business! Get out of my
way, I’ve got to go and see if I can salvage my job.” She turned
her back and attempted to tie her torn dress, but then abruptly she
said, “Did he see your face?”

“I don’t think so,” G’Taklar responded.

“Good, then get out of here quick,
otherwise,
he’ll call for the
soldiers and they’ll probably hang you. Oh, and I’m sorry I hit
you
and thank you for my rescue. I
only wish it could have been you for my first…”, but then she
trailed off and just leaned up and kissed him on the lips before
adding, “Now get out of here while you still can.”

The spirited girl hurried down to the common
room stairs to help her groaning employer while G’Taklar made good
on his escape out the back stairway, his head in a
daze
from the kiss.

The name of the town was Roper. It was rough
like its name implied, the streets twisting and knotting like some
lunatic’s idea of a puzzle. Many horse trails and a single wagon
road led into the town, like ropes to a tangled knot, giving
testament to the constant traffic this border town attracted. The
town was secluded at the edge of some low hills that sloped down
gradually into dry yellow and lime colored grasslands. Roper was
far from any of Operhelm’s major cities and only a few hours ride
from the northern border.

Elizabeth’s chestnut mount snorted heavily
when she reined him in at the top of the hill overlooking the town.
Hetark brought his piebald stallion to a stop on her left side, and
his gaze fell warily on the town as well.

“Roper looks as bad as its reputation
forewarns, it should provide you with what you’re looking for,”
Hetark noted.

“Good, it’s about time I started taking the
offensive against my enemies, I will prepare the way for my son,”
she said with a thin smile of anticipation.

Hetark watched that small smile and it
warmed his heart; during the last few days of travel he had seen
her look back over her shoulder toward the Kirnath School, lines of
sorrow etched in her face warring with worry for her son.

Repeatedly he had watched her fight an
internal battle between her need as a mother and Michael’s ultimate
safety. Hetark knew her absence from Michael’s early years of
development would scar Elizabeth for life, yet she went on to do
what had to be done. He vowed silently to make their enemies pay,
in total, for every instant of loss and sorrow that this fair Lady
endured.

As he contemplated Elizabeth’s sorrow he
became so angry with the perpetrators who had caused her anguish
that his whole body shook in fury. He glanced over at Elizabeth,
but she was so absorbed in studying the town below that she had not
noticed his reaction.

“When would you suggest we enter town?”
Elizabeth asked.

Hetark regained his composure and said, “The
type of person you’re looking for won’t be available this early in
the day.” He glanced up at the sun’s level, “I think we should take
a room at a nice hotel and then wait until dark before we search
some
lower-class
taverns for a
likely candidate. If you prefer, I’ll do the hiring and you can sit
back and look like the boss. I know how to speak the lingo with
these
roughblades
,” he
suggested.

Elizabeth gave him a penetrating look with
her intense eyes, which made him shift uncomfortably in his saddle.
After subjecting him to her glare for a few moments, she raised one
eyebrow. “Implying that I don’t know how to blend in and would get
us into trouble?”

Hetark cleared his throat in consternation
before responding, “Well, I, well, yes.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” she said,
suddenly relaxing her stern expression and grinning at his
reaction, she reached over and placed her hand over the top of his
to reassure the worried man. “That’s one of the reasons I want you
with
me, and it’s also the reason
we’re going to hire one of these people as a bodyguard, so I can
use her to learn a few importing things. Remember, I’m looking for
a woman, around my height, tough, good with a blade.”

“I still think I could teach you,” Hetark
replied.

“Hetark, you’re too good a knight to teach
me the kind of thing I want to learn, besides you have a male’s
outlook on things and I need to learn the opposite. So stop
worrying so much, it crinkles up the skin on your forehead, and
that makes you look like one of those desert carrion birds,” she
admonished him in good humor, but Elizabeth hadn’t told him all the
reasons she wanted to find a tough woman to study.

“I’m just concerned for your safety, you
don’t know these people, they’re... rough. If they spot someone
with a crack in their
shield
or
someone that’s not part of their ‘group’, they’ll be after you like
a religious fanatic on an unbeliever.”

“What do you mean by after you?” she wanted
to know.

“You become a ‘mark’, a person to hoodwink,
or con or even kill and rob. Their kind
feeds
on the helpless, the more helpless you look, the
more they will attempt to victimize you,” the knight explained.

“I understand, Hetark, but that is exactly
the type of person for which I’m looking. I promise to let you take
the lead, I’ll be the tough and quiet type, making them guess at my
experience instead of displaying my naiveté,” she promised, letting
loose of his hand. Then she added, “Besides, I have some advantages
with handling people, as you know. Since we have a few bells to
work with and I don’t feel like sitting in a hotel waiting for it
to get dark, let’s stop here for awhile before going into town. We
can practice those hand switching knife moves that you showed me
yesterday, and you promised to begin teaching me to throw next,”
Elizabeth reminded the knight.

Back in Headwater, G’Taklar found a
kier
house some distance away from
Fat’s tavern and decided to try his luck at finding a job. He
approached the old crooked door and glanced up at the sign hanging
above, it was so faded that he could not make out anything except
the picture of a
kier
mug.

He opened the door and found himself in a
small entryway with a thick curtain that blocked further progress.
G’Taklar pushed it aside and found that he was looking into a dark
room that had small alcoves hiding rough wooden tables. A
tired-looking
middle-aged woman
wearing thin robes approached and looked him over slowly. Her lip
curled slightly in an amused sneer as she took in his colorful
clothes. Then she said, “Do you want a boy, girl or Kier?” she
drawled.

“I’d like to talk to the owner about a
job.”

“A job, doing what?” she asked immediately,
in a disgusted tone.

“Whatever I can, I need to make some round,”
G’Taklar replied truthfully.

“No, you don’t say, round?” she repeated
sarcastically as she made fun of the boy. “Well, I can see that
you’re pretty, but there isn’t too much call for boys, I doubt
you’ll talk Benny into giving you a job.”

Having just come in out of the harsh
sunlight G’Taklar’s eyes were just starting to adjust to the dim
light. He could see three single male customers sitting at tables
around him; all three seemed uninterested in his conversation with
the woman.

Unexpectedly the curtain was whipped back
behind him and sunlight bore into the room silhouetting three
soldiers who had just come in the door. The three patrons within
immediately scrambled out of their tables and headed for the back
door like rats fleeing a burning nest, but they ran right into the
arms of the four soldiers entering from that direction.

G’Taklar stood in mute surprise at the
interruption.

One of the soldiers stepped forward and
barked out in a loud voice, “All those
wish’in
te join the Tchulian infantry, please stand up!
Right, we seem te have four volunteers out o’ four, again! What
patriotism, what courage, what good fortune...”

“What
yulkcrap
!” a patron who had been grabbed at the back door
added.

“Exactly my friend, and that’s what you’ll
be eat
’
in fer
dinner if I’m interrupted again!” the soldier at
the door replied as he walked over to the man and backhanded him
across the face with casual brutality. The man’s smashed nose bled
profusely.

“As I
was
say
’in, I’m Sergeant Herms, and it is yer honor to
voluntarily join the finest military in the world, the Tchulian
infantry. From this day forth and
fer
the next six glorious years, assuming you survive
that long,
ye’ll
be proud fighters
fer
the Tchulian goals. Bring the
new recruits outside
fer
inspection, corporal!”

“Yes, sergeant,” a soldier who entered
through the back door replied, “All right you scum, you heard him,
outside, and form a line. Move yer fat
farters
, now!”

“
What should I do?”
G’Taklar asked
his internal advisor quickly.

“
Move your tail outside like the man
said, you’re in the Tchulian army,”
Jatar responded.

“
I’m what?”
G’Taklar replied in
disbelief.

“
You’re in the army, well at least for
the time being. We can’t do much against five armed men, so we’ll
have to go with the program for now,”
he explained, and added,
“at least they don’t seem to be looking for you
specifically.”

G’Taklar moved outside at the caustic
corporal’s verbal prodding and once out in the sunlight he lined up
with the other sorry Tchulian recruits.

The corporal walked up and down their ragged
line, sneering at the blinking, swaying and generally sorry
looking men
they had caught in
their recruitment net.

He turned to report to the sergeant. “This
here group looks so bad it could be a waste of our time, maybe we
should let them go and try
fer
some real men in the next dump.”

Hope sprang up in the faces of the new
recruits, even G’Taklar’s face brightened, until the sergeant
answered the corporal.

“Naw, I like the one in the fancy colors; I
can’t wait te see him sweat.”

The other new recruits looked disgustedly at
G’Taklar.

“Besides,” the sergeant continued, “it’s too
much trouble in this heat to find any more volunteers, so let’s
take these eager puppies.”

“
I’m definitely going to have to do
something about these clothes, and soon, they keep getting me into
trouble,”
G’Taklar thought to Jatar.

“
I think they may take care of that for
you,
in fact,
I’m sure,”
Jatar finished saying as the corporal came
abreast of G’Taklar. He reached up to the colorful silk shirt on
G’Taklar’s chest and casually ripped if off like so much paper.
This left G’Taklar’s upper body bare.

“
Does everyone in this town want to take
off my clothes?”
he asked Jatar rhetorically.